Pathiri / Soft Rice Flat Bread

A perfect dish, which can be prepared during iftar time/dinner. The process of preparing these pathiris look tedious, but is worth every bit of it. The toughest part being that you need to knead the hot dough continuously, until it turns soft.

Pathiri is a traditional and authentic food of Kerala. This is also called as ari pathiri, pathil and so on.These are made on special occasions for parties/ marriage functions/ iftar etc.

Initially I thought the process of making these pathiris is time consuming, but as I started making these, it turned out to be easier than I thought. My husband is a big fan of Pathiri and so every year, once during ramzan fasting I try to make this myself for him. This can be soaked in coconut milk and eaten along with any gravy curry, but needless to mention, it tastes yummm along with chicken or mutton curry :-). I served this along with Ummachi’s chicken curry and coconut milk.By pouring coconut milk these pathiris will become soft. Just try this out and you too will love these soft and cute rice rotis.

Ingredients:

1. Rice flour- 1 Cup
2. Oil- 1 tbsp
3. Water- 2 Cups
4. Salt- as required

Method:

1. Boil water along with required amount of salt and oil.
2. Add the rice flour to the boiled water and stir continuously or else it will get burnt and it will stick to the bottom.
3. Keep it on low flame for about 10- 15 minutes and close with a lid.
4. Switch off the flame and let the dough get cool. Knead the dough thoroughly with your hands when it is still hot.
5. Knead the dough until it becomes uniformly soft and less sticky. You can do this by diving the dough in 2 or 3 portions and knead.
6. When it becomes soft, make lime sized balls and flatten it little between your palms to give shape.
7. Using a chapathi press, roll these flattened balls into thin pathiris by dusting the chapathi press and rolling pin with rice flour, so that it won’t stick to the press. Cut these into perfect round shape using a round, sharp edge vessel.
8. Heat a non stick tawa and cook these prepared pathiris till both the sides are done. serve hot with chicken curry / mutton curry/ vegetable kurma.