Chappati Corn Rolls

Today is 2nd October the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and therefore a holiday through the length and breadth of India. Holidays always have this getting-up-late-lazing-around-after-a-huge-breakfast feel. Specially if the holiday comes in between a work week.

The first two are fine...but the huge breakfast is a perennial problem. I have always been a milk and cereal or tea and toast breakfast person. Alas, not hubby dear. He would like oily parathas, eggs and bacon and all sorts of cholesterol laden fatty oily food. And like all such things, incredibly tasty. So the challenge before me was manifold:

• Make it tasty enough to make him forgo parathas / eggs etc.
• Make it low cal enough to make it healthy without him realising it.
• Make it with the odds and end that there are in the fridge / kitchen
• Go make it myself, curbing the enormous desire to sit in the verandah and enjoy the wonderful teeny tiny nip in the air on this lazy morning
• Also, I have sacked my irascible maid ...just yesterday.

So I summoned up all my courage and made a hodge podge of ingredients and recipes learnt from m-i-l, my s-i-l (a terrific cook) and ofcourse R (even more terrific a cook if possible).

This is what I found in my fridge / kitchen and therefore used

1/2 a capsicum (bell pepper)

1 cube amul cheese

1 small cup corn

1 small onion

6-7 garlic

A pinch dried Thyme

Olive oil

Atta / Whole wheat flour

A tiny bit of butter

This is what I did of the above

1. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a pan.
2. Add the garlic and stir till the garlic releases its aroms (couple of seconds)
3. Lightly saute the onions till they turn pink
4. Add the capsicum, dried thyme, followed by the corn
5. About 3 or 4 minutes later, add the grated cheese and mix well.
6. Season with salt to taste.
7. Remove from flame, cover and keep.
8. Knead the atta in to a dough and roll out five (size of a quarter plate) thin chapattis.
9. Add 3-4 pods garlic crushed into a small bit butter (about a tsp full). Melt a dash of butter (I kept the butter in a small bowl on top of the pan with the corn mix).
10. Put the rolled chappattis in a pan - be careful about not burning the chappatis otherwise they will get hard.
11. When each chappati has been dry fried (their colour change) on each side, use a spoon to put a bit of the garlic butter on each side.
12. When done, remove from fire, add the corn mix, roll and serve. Viola!

End result: All rolls gone, a breakfast fit for a holiday, happy hubby and most importantly, low cal.

Low cal, despite the cheese and butter. How?

Butter: I used only one curl of butter. Curl? Well when you run a knife on the surface of the slab of butter, the knife will cut it out in a thin curl. And since I melted it, it was enough for all 5 rolls. And instead of lathering it on the chapattis, I dabbed a bit on each chappati. This is better than putting the butter in the corn mix. You'd or rather I'd need a huge amount to convince hubby that I had indeed used copious amounts of butter.

Now the cheese: I did grate one whole cube of cheese (enough for two sandwiches). However, I used only 1 tsp on the grated cheese, again sprinkled on top of the cooked corn...so that its taste was definitely identifiable!! The rest I put away in the fridge, in a small jar.

Oil: I used only 1 tbsp of olive oil.

And I was actually going to put the corn mix in lightly toasted bread. But we are all out of bread and hubby was feeling a tad lazy. And I, still dressed in my night rags, couldn't venture out.

So, the chappati innovation.

Note for other Timid Cooks like me: Bread, Pita bread are easier options than rolling out chapattis.

Note for Interpid Cooks: You might be right about laughing at this silly recipe if you happened to be anyone other than a Timid Cook. So please be kind to me, when you read this!