Griddle Baked Pastry in Andhra Pradesh and (?) in Eritrea
Thanks so much for so many comments. I’ll be replying properly when I have done my “real” work for the day. But one more example to throw into the discussion, thanks to Ammini Ramachandran, who always has interesting information to add.
Rachel: A similar thin pastry is prepared with rice ground with water to a thin liquid and spread on heated clay pots in the southeastern state Andhra Pradesh in India. These thin layers are filed with ghee and sugar and rolled into a pastry. It is a cottage industry in the villages. Here are links to an article and a video. Thought you might be interested.
Just look at the cook flip her rice-water paste on to that inverted black pot-oven-griddle with a cloth, then peel it off. Quite fascinating.
And here’s a link to Jeremy Cherfas’s Vaviblog (highly recommended by the way) that follows the travels of the Russian plant scientist Vavilov. Here’s Vavilov on an Eritrean bread. It was an entry I had found quite puzzling. Shouldn’t those stones be hot to set the dough?
The people were, indeed, similar to the Amharans but their customs were completely different. The method of making bread was particularly interesting and the first of its kind I encountered in this country. Round stones are coated with a dough made from wheat or teff. [1] A fire is lit and when only glowing embers are left, the stones covered with dough are placed on them. Of course, the bread becomes scorched and great dexterity is necessary so that it will not be completely burnt up.
- Speculations, please: the griddle-seared pastry (warka-popiah) across Eurasia
- Round up on griddle-baked thin pastry
O.K. having looked at the amazing video (thanks for the link), and comparing it to the easy method for producing warka pastry that I linked to in another post, I have to say that this looks like independent development of very similar techniques?
The video shows a method for essentially brushing a pastry onto a hot round “griddle”, which is different from tapping a dough onto a hot griddle.
I think this is important not just as a matter of technique. You need a particular kind of flour to create a dough with enough elasticity to make seared pastry leaves. Whereas you can make brushed pastry leaves with different types of flours or even finely ground legumes.
If by the easy method for warka you mean the new brush method, that method is probably very, very new. In the age of the internet and youtube, technique transfers happen much more rapidly. I’ve seen the brush method used for lumpia by homecooks.
Thanks for the link. I think that the Eritrean bread is called Kitcha. And I agree, it is odd that the (apparently) cold stones are covered with dough and then placed over the embers. I’ve tried to find out more, but there doesn’t seem to be much easily available on the internet.
One of the things about pootarekulu–the Andhra rice “paper pastry”– is that non-Godavari district people are rarely ever as impressed with them as those of us who grew up with them are. It’s very disappointing when something you consider a delicacy is treated with gingerly “interest” by outsiders. Perhaps if they could see it made, they’d be more open to the taste of them. The amounts of clarified butter required are quite astonishing–rather like phyllo dough.
Fascinating. But more please. They are layered with clarified butter? or it’s on the pot?