And once again it looks like a piece of cake. The making, not the roti.
Still, I guess I will try it again soon. Thanks for the video.

Not Mexican food -don't be so foolish - I'm talking about the factory flat bread you mentioned with a shelf-life of a year or so.

Do you think if InShan wanted to eat that, she'd start this thread?

So, just to clarify:


Food machine made in a factory at a reasonable price - not real.


Same food, made in a similar machine, but in your kitchen and which costs far more - real.


Sound logic.

You seem to stupid to argue with - so I won't.

Or in other words, you have no retort and realise that you cant actually challenge a simple comparison between machine-made food.


Have a good day, sir. May your future debates end on better terms for you.

The El Paso concoction does not even taste like real tortillas, let alone exactly the same as Roti.

Search the mistake .....

If you wanna call people stupid, do it in educated writing?

Says the person using made up words like "wanna".

Additionally, if we're in pedant mode, it's "search for the mistake..."

I didn't actually call him stupid anyway. I said he "seemed" stupid.

Bet you eat packet Rosti too?

J, before you make fun of other people's debating styles, you might try to work on your own and start using terms correctly.

Comparing fajita to roti is like comparing wheat bread to cheese fondue. Fajita is a dish consisting of grilled meat and other ingredients served on an unfolded tortilla. The tortilla may be corn-based or, in your case, wheat-based. Actually, the term fajita originally only meant the way the meat is cut, "faja" meaning a strip or ribbon, and "fajita" being the diminutive form thereof, but it does not mean the tortilla. It's the other ingredients and the way it's served that make a dish with a tortilla a fajita. Same with tacos (folded over) and burritos (tightly wrapped).

So, like the wheat bread is an important part of the cheese fondue, the tortilla is an important part of the fajita, but you can never ever say it's the same, not even remotely.

In other words, if you had compared whole-wheat tortillas to rotis, the whole thing would have made some sense but not the way you did it.

Have a good day, sir. May your future debates be carried on with a better choice of words.

__________________

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Long live America and it's English

The world is huge, the variety mind-boggling (for some).

Am I missing something here? Roti is very easy to make. I am a terrible bread-maker, but Roti (and flatbread) is the one thing that doesn't intimidate me. The fact that there is no yeast to work with is always a bonus when it comes to bread-making for novices.

I watched the promo video linked by the OP, and I admit, it was very impressive, but it also underscored its simplicity, when it is basically just equal parts water and flour plus a very hot pan.

Here's a tip that I got from an Indian friend of mine: She uses equal parts flour and natural yoghurt (instead of water). Make a dough, and leave it in a warm place for half an hour. Roll them thinly and put in a very hot dry pan. After a minute, bubbles will form on the surface, then flip it over for another minute. And you're done!

I'm from a South Asian family and I agree that making roti is very easy. Anyone can do it.

Making a good roti is really really hard.

Old El Paso/Haldirams etc are very good examples of what is wrong with those grocery store substitutes. I like my food to taste fresh and home made, to not have ingredients that I don't have either in my own kitchen cabinet or reasonable access to buy. So no thanks to preservatives etc.

I completely understand and agree with the view of make it by hand then and I have for years- but if there is a reasonably priced device which simplifies the process- why wouldn't I take it?

Rotimatic doesn't fit that definition for me (cost, waiting list etc) but an electronic tortilla press or roti maker might just. I also can't wait to end my dependency on El Mais tortillas! Making these things at home - there is no comparing the difference in taste.

Oh and making the dough isn't the issue- I love that part and have responsibility for making the dough for people every time I go to their house! It's the rolling out- boring, repetitive bleh! And without a gas stove getting the proper "puff" on the roti.

Also people might think a machine like this is silly and useless and making roti is easy and quick etc.

Yeh maybe that two times a year you decide to be all ethnic and put on a sari for fancy dress it is. But south Asian families have it several times per week. It used to be an awful task of almost daily kneading dough by hand before kitchenaid and kenwood chefs became mainstream.

This automatic machine seems to be a progression on that, just like making bread once in a while is easy, but they still have these automatic bread makers. I’ve not tried it so don’t know the quality of it. Would be keen to give it a go.

Another tip for the dough is to use the whey from making paneer in the roti dough to make them incredibly soft, give them a solid protein hit and a faintly sweet/sour flavour profile. I usually throw in ajwain seeds into the dough if I do that as the taste together is amazing.

How many additional additives and preservatives do you think there in a factory-made flatbread designed with a longer shelf life vs one cooked fresh at home? The reason you make such things (and almost anything else) at home is so you have it fresh from the source and so that you can control what goes in them. Shop-bought Tortillas often use transfats.

However, yeah, 1000USD is a lot for a machine with more or less one specific purpose... I'd rather learn to make them by hand.

PS: Judging from your posting today you seem to have entered some state of neurotic overdrive.

Yep, that's the bit that kills mine.

InShan, have fun with your new toy and do put some pictures here? So we can see the end result!

I think for 1000 CHF, you could go on a world master course and learn the ultimate chapati /roti skills needed.

I was brought up next door to an Indian Doctor and his family in the late 60s early 70s. We spent many days in their kitchen with his children and their mother and learnt all sorts of basic Indian cooking (they also spent similar time in my mother's kitchen learning Lancashire cuisine - Oxymoron for some people)

The buttered chapatis were my favourite - she had an AGA cooker and a Wok looking pan (with a flat bottom). She used industrial sized Ghee and a brown flour sack, which was probably Durum. She left the mix covered in a bowl for half an hour and then we all cooked our own (she had added the magic mix of salt and maybe something special) - maybe it is the midas touch, heat or time?

Butter (lurpak) was optional when we fried it. It puffed up and burnt on a few places - which tasted good to me.
The home made veg or chicken curries were something you never find in restaurants. They were designed for these chapatis. Happy days!!!
Still in contact with one of the sons Amiya- 44 years later (Spoke last week)
I am sure he has the secret Roti recipe