Tuesday 12 July 2011

Tomato amlate(omlette)

Whoever said you can't make an omlette without breaking any eggs! It's called "cheela" in hindi. My aayee pronounces it "chilla" :) We have always known it as "tomato amlate". It's basically a kind of a spicy pancake made with chick-pea flour. It's ideal for those 5 pm hunger pangs when you also want something to tickle your tastebuds and also support you through the evening until dinner. You could even sandwich it between two slices of healthy brown bread and eat it with ketchup. My six year old loves it (his is made without the green chillies).
Ingredients: (makes 5-6 omlettes)
1. Besan (chick pea flour) 6 tbsn heaped
2. Onion, 1 medium, finely chopped
3. Tomato, 1 small, finely chopped
4. Green chillies 1-2, finely chopped
5. Coriander leaves finely chopped
6. Salt 2 tsn
7. Water 1 cup (approx)
8. Oil/ghee 5 tspn for the skillet(tava)

Procedure:
Mix ingredients 1 to 7 in a bowl. Note: add the water slowly until a thick batter is formed (something of the consistency of cake-batter, a little thinner).  Heat the tava (heavy iron griddle). Check if the tava is hot by sprinkling a few drops of water on it. The water droplets should bounce off the tava, not just sizzle into steam. Warning: If the tava is not hot enough, the omlette will stick to it and scraping it off and cleaning the tava wastes a lot of time!
Do not use non-stick, the teflon's not good for you. Spread a tspn of ghee/oil on the skillet. Use a ladle/big-spoon to scoop up the mixed batter and spread it as quickly as you can on the hot griddle. You may cover it with a lid till one side is cooked(about 2 minutes). Scrape it off the tava with a spatula(this requires some skill), flip it and do the other side for half a minute. Repeat until all the batter's used up. You could even refrigerate the batter for tomorrow, only bring it to room-temperature before making the omlettes. Serve straight from the skillet onto the plate with a bowl of curd (plain yoghurt) as dip. It's yumm and 2 of them quite fill me up!

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