Recipe For Whole Wheat Tortillas

[lilmizcheezcake]

I hope this is the right place to ask….since I am not really sure if whole wheat tortillas are baked or not. I was searching for a recipe on how to make whole wheat tortillas. I was thinking about making corn tortillas, but have this craving for freshly made whole wheat tortillas, steaming and hot. Yummm! Does anyone have a recipe for this or know of where I can get one?

Lil Miz

[Bruce Paine]

lilmizcheezcake,

Actually, the best place to ask is at Google and if you don't have Google on your browser, then Firefox is
one of the best browsers for Googling and quickly surfing multiples of sites
while using the minimum amount of RAM without the interference of pop-up windows.

Look up whole wheat flour tortillas and also chapatis

The primary difference between flour tortillas and chapatis is that that the tortillas might be cooked on each side until slightly browned whereas chapatis are heated on a dry griddle until they puff up.

Macrobiotic cooks usually avoid using yeast, or any quick leaveners in the dough but if you want the bread to be naturally leavened, you can use a "chef", desem, or sourdough starter (or make one from the dough you are using).

Otherwise you can just have an unleavened flatbread tortilla, pita, or chapati.

When I was lving at and working as a night clerk at the Swiss-American Hotel in North Beach, San Francisco, back in 1979-1980, my immediate superior was a man in his mid to late 60s from Pakistan named Mohammed Siddique C________, who was a devout Muslim, whose wife was back in Karachi, and Siddique who had worked in remote railway station outposts for most of his life in Pakistan, spent most of each year away from his wife and had to cook everything for himself.

So, sometimes I would find him cooking dal and chapatis on the hotel's gas stove and griddle and would inquire how he learned to cook and he told me from watching his wife cook during the short vacations that would he would be back with his family.

The way Siddique made chapatis is he would mix the flour and water and salt into a dough using a spoon and then knead it into a dough with his hands, and grab a smalll bunch of the dough and start forming the dough in the air by pressing and flattening the dough between his fingerti spinning the disk of dough vertically as the disk got bigger and bigger until it reached the size and thinnest that he wanted and then he would toss it on the griddle, prodding it occasionally to keep it from burning until it started to puff up and then he would flip it over and repeat the process until it puffed up some more and then put it on a plate and grab another piece of dough and create another chapati and cook it the same way and continue the same process until all the dough was gone and he had a platter of warm chapatis and then he would turn off the stove, sit down and have a meal of dal and chapatis.

Because of its size, a chapati recipe will follow in the next message...

[Bruce Paine]

Here is a great chapati recipe by Cornelia Aihara in Macrobiotic Community Cookbook by Andrea Bliss-Lerman (Revised and updated):

"CHAPATI

Yield: About 17 chapati, each 4 inches in diameter

By Comellia Aihara
George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation

7 cups finely ground whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups warm water (body temperature)
2 teaspoon sea salt

TO MAKE DOUGH

Mix sea salt and water in small bowl. Place flour in large bowl. Make a shallow hole in center of flour. Pour salted water into hole all at once. Hold the bowl with one hand, and, with just the fingers of the other hand, stir in circles-small to large-until all the water is absorbed. Make dough into a ball.

TO KNEAD

Knead dough with the heels of the hand. Poke holes in dough with thumbs as you hold dough in both hands. Fold dough over holes and press with heels of hand. Turn flattened dough 1/4 turn and repeat kneading process until dough is a little softer than earlobe consistency, and a little more moist than bread dough. It takes about 10 minutes for the gluten to come and the texture to
become rubbery.

TO RISE

Let dough sit 24 hours at room temperature in a bowl covered with a wet towel, or in a porcelain pot covered with a lid.

TO FORM BALLS

Knead dough a few times in the bowl. Lightly flour your working space. Pinch off small portions of dough and roll them into balls about 2 inches in diameter. Make as many balls as you need for the meal to be served. Roll balls in flour so they are lightly
coated.

TO ROLL OUT

Press down one ball with the heel of the hand until it is 1/3-inch thick, then roll out with a rolling pin or surikogi to 4 or 5 inches in diameter. Roll out only one chapati at a time, and cook imme-
diately.

TO COOK-STEP 1

Heat cast iron frying pan, griddle, or other heavy skillet until hot. No oil should be used. Place rolled-out chapati in hot frying pan (medium flame) for 1-2 minutes. Small bumps will appear on surface of dough. Push them down lightly with back of fingers. Turn chapati over and cook 1 minute. Dough will change color from raw gray to cooked tan, but should not start to expand .

TO COOK-STEP 2

Set gas flame on medium-low. Place chapati on cake rack. Using an oven mitt to protect your hands, hold rack at a 30 degree angle to flame. Make circular motions, allowing flame to heat edges of chapati first. Rotate chapati periodically so every part of its edge has a chance to be nearest the flame. The dough will expand, balloon-like. Continue to cook with circular motions. You will see steam escaping along the edge. Turn over and continue cooking until golden brown. (Note: Sometimes the dough doesn't completely expand. The pocket, formed from the dough expansion, will have formed anyway if all the steam has escaped.)

TO KEEP HOT UNTIL SERVED

Line a ceramic bowl with a large, wet, terry cloth towel. Put cooked chapati in bowl and cover with ends of towel. When all chapati are cooked and placed in bowl, cover again with ends of towel. Then, put a lid of aluminum foil over top of bowl and place bowl in warm oven. This method is especially helpful if you are making a lot of chapati

TO STORE DOUGH

Dough can be refrigerated 5-6 days. Cover to keep it from drying out. It will become slightly softer each day as more gluten comes out. Don't add any flour. This softer dough is actually easier to work with. After 5 days, the dough will smell slightly sour, but when baked, is more sweet and digestible than the chapati made the first 2-3 days.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DAILY USE

Decide how many chapati you want to serve in a week. Make enough dough on a Saturday or Sunday for the week, and keep it in the refrigerator. Make balls, roll out dough, and cook chapati just before each meal or snack. It takes about 5 minutes to make each chapati.

FOR SMALL CHILDREN AND ELDERLY PEOPLE

1/3 - 1/2 of the flour used could be replaced with unbleached white flour for a softer, more digestible bread."

Whole wheat tortillas have always been available so I have not had the desire to make them and none of my (few) macrobiotic cookbooks have recipes for them.

Hopefully the chapati recipes will suffice.

Thank you, very much, and

Happy chapati making!

Bruce Paine

[lilmizcheezcake]

Hi again Bruce-

I really appreciate your help and enjoyed your post with learning how to make chapattis from your co-worker. I was looking for more of a flatbread version, but maybe I will also try a leavened version too. Here is a great recipe from one of the links your gave,

http://bread.allrecipes.com/az/WhlWhtWrps.asp

I am pretty excited about making bread. I have leaven in the works and it should be done tomorrow and then I can try out whole wheat leaven bread for the first time. I have never heard of chapatis but do love pita bread so I am sure I will also like chapatis. Thank you so much for the recipe! I am having so much fun discovering things about healthy food! Take care, and best wishes.

Lil Miz

[Klara]

Both chapatis and pitta are best FRESH - the difference is pitta is baked and chapatis dry cooked on the stove. (on stove is the preferred way for mb, baking can be drying, more yang) As you get better at it, your hands will better withstand the hot chapatis as you turn them over, at the beginning it's quite "challenging"!!!!

Also pitta can open up into pockets so you can stuff food inside, chapatis you can put food in and roll up. Both are wonderful for sopping up (couldn't think of a better word) any spreads or sauces. What's nice with chapatis (suppose also for pitta, but haven't tried it) is you can make the dough, and let the dough sit, and just use as much as you're going to eat at that sitting. Keep the dough well wrapped in fridge, tho if keeping only for a day, I would guess (only my guessing, someone may know better) would just act as sourdough does. If keeping for longer, I guess the freezer would work, but I myself hardly use the freezer except for keeping tempeh.

Enjoy

Klara

[lilmizcheezcake]

Hi Klara- Chapatis sound wonderful and I can’t wait to give them a try. I made the wheat wraps I posted above in other post and all though good I wouldn’t recommend them for tortillas, but I guess that is why the recipe said “wrap.” They where good though just a little hard to put things into and eat. Maybe fresh veggies would have worked better. I wish I could have made them thinner then they would have been good crackers.

Lil Miz