[Sca-cooks] Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 121, Issue 7

[Susan Lord]

Many thanks for all your most helpful suggestions. I am back to the drawing board!
> Nazirah Garrison wrote:
>  my experience with that comes from the Indian
> flatbread mentioned -- bajri no rotli -- it is terribly finicky and the
> dough is prone to drying out. For that reason, we generally mix the millet
> with other flours (generally wheat or chickpea) to mitigate some of the
> issues, and apply a thin coating of cooking oil or melted ghee to the dough
> ball to help retain moisture.
> 
> And FWIW, my grandmother would have used terminology that would translate
> to "spoiled" or "deteriorated" when referring to the effects of leaving the
> dough unattended for a period of time.
> 
> "Terry Decker" wrote
> 
> 
> Deteriorar - deteriorate, damage, wear, spoil.  Might I suggest "spoils."
> 
> Tapioca flour, yeast, baking powder and xanthan gum are not part of the 
> original recipe you presented.  The are used in some modern recipes for 
> millet bread.  For historical recreation of the recipe, I wouldn't use them. 
> For practical reasons, I might use yeast and pea or bean flour as additives 
> for the "thick" version of the bread, but would forget about them in the 
> "thin" version.
> 
> As to your added ingredients, tapioca flour is high in starch and will 
> require greater hydration than millet flour.  I suspect that without added 
> fats it may promote cracking in the final product.  Yeast will lighten the 
> final product, but without gluten there is no particular need to let the 
> dough rise.  Ten or fifteen minutes to activate fully is all you really 
> need.  The result you get will be primarily in the oven spring.  Baking soda 
> and cream of tartar would be a better bet than baking powder, which has a 
> delayed, heat activated effect that may dry the final product.  Xanthan gum 
> is a modern additive used to produce a leavenable plasticity in gluten free 
> dough, which might be of value if using yeast (the rise should be 45 minutes 
> to 1 hour).
> 
> I would point out that examining the references to Bajri no Rotlo, are not 
> so much about historical research, but about learning how to prepare the 
> recipe.  Use it as your starting point, then work with the other ingredients 
> if you wish to modernize the recipe.
> 
> Elise Fleming  wrote:
> 
> Where did the mention of yeast or baking powder come from? Baking powder 
> wouldn't have existed in the time period of the original recipe, but I 
> don't see any mention of yeast in the translation, either. Why would you 
> have used either of them, especially in a medieval recipe?
> 
> Alys K.
> -- 
> Elise Fleming
> alyskatharine at gmail.com
> http://damealys.medievalcookery.com/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/8311418@N08/sets/