Biscuit Roti

Biscuit Roti

Biscuit roti are puffed up pooris that are flavorful & delicious. Biscuit roti are a popular Udupi, Mangalore snack. They are spicy and sweet. Crispy biscuit roti are usually served as a tea time snack.

Biscuit roti are puffed up puris of plain flour (maida) with a layer of seasoned semolina filling. Biscuit roti are similar to the kachoris of North India.

Biscuit rotis stay crispy until the next day. They then get soft but continue to taste delicious. They can be stored for 2-5 days.

You can make a batch of these puris & store them to enjoy them any time of the day. That way you don’t have to wait for evening tea to enjoy these biscuit rotis. :-P Unlike other puri’s, where you’ll have to make fresh ones when people turn up.

This snack hardly takes any time to prepare, hardly any effort and skill. You can also make them quickly when guests drop in unannounced. All you’ll need to do is make a dough using plain flour, season semolina & use it as a filling. Roll them and then deep fry them to make amazingly yummy, sweet, spicy, crispy, puffed up pooris. They taste great as-is and you don’t need a chutney or sauce to go with them.

Here's a video on how to make biscuit roti.

 



Ingredients:

For the dough:

  • 3/4 cup of plain flour
  • Salt to taste
  • 2 tablespoons of hot oil
  • A pinch of turmeric
  • 1/4 cup of water

For the filling:

  • 3 tablespoons of oil
  • 1/4 teaspoon of mustard seeds
  • 1/2 tablespoon of cumin powder
  • 1/2 tablespoon of coriander powder
  • 1 tablespoon of sambar powder
  • 1 tablespoon of red chilli powder
  • Salt to taste
  • A pinch of turmeric
  • 2-3 tablespoons of sugar
  • 1/2 cup of small semolina
  • 2 leaflets of curry leaves - leaves should be finely chopped.
  • Oil for deep frying

Serves: 3-4

Preparation Time: 45 minutes


Preparation Method:

Preparing the dough:

1. In a bowl mix plain flour with salt, add in hot oil and mix well. Then add in water little by little and knead it into a soft, pliable dough that you can flatten out easily.

Adding hot oil to the dough helps make biscuit roti get more crispy . Hot oil when is added to the dough to make it crispy is called as saat in Konkani.

2. Keep the dough aside, closed.


Preparing the filling:

  1. Heat up oil in a wok, add in mustard seeds and let them splutter.
  2. Then add in curry leaves and let it sizzle for few seconds. 
  3. Then add cumin powder, coriander powder, sambar powder, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, semolina, salt and sugar in the same order. 
  4. Mix well and saute for 2-3 minutes on medium flame until all the spices blend in well. 
  5. Remove off heat and keep it aside for cooling.

Rolling out and making biscuit roti:

  1. Make lemon sized balls of the dough kept aside.
  2. Roll out the dough using plain flour for dusting. Make circles of 2-3 inches in diameter.
  3. Take a tablespoon full of the filling, keep it in the centre of the rolled out dough.
  4. Then start folding in the outer edges of the dough circle to the centre such that the filling is completely sealed in. They now resemble a dumpling.
  5. Seal in the filling completely with the dough. Make sure there aren’t any holes, any gaps formed while sealing close the dumpling. Or else it absorbs oil inside and gets oily.
  6. Dust the dumpling with plain flour and flatten it out to circles of 2-3 inches in diameter.
  7. Be gentle while rolling out the dumplings. Take care such that the outer dough doesn’t tear off. Or else oil gets inside the puri and makes biscuit roti oily.
  8. Be generous with the amount of filling that you add into the dumplings. More the filling, tastier the biscuit roti. But also be careful not to add excess too, such that they overfill and spill out of the dumplings or tear off the outer dough of the dumpling while rolling them out.
  9. Heat oil for deep frying.
  10. Check if the oil is rolling hot, by dropping a tiny piece of dough into the oil. When dropped into the hot oil, the dough piece should float to the top immediately. If it does then lower the flame to medium and start frying the rolled out puri’s one by one. If not wait for few more minutes for the oil to heat up.
  11. Fry the biscuit rotis until they are golden brown in colour all around.
  12. Transfer the fried, puffed up, crispy biscuit roti onto a blotting paper so that all the excess oil drains out.
  13. Serve hot biscuit roti and enjoy!
  14. Any biscuit roti remaining (mostly likely not :-) ) you can store them in a air tight container and they’ll stay crispy upto a day. 
  15. You can store these biscuit rotis for 2-3 days and enjoy them whenever you want to as a snack.

Side Note: 

1. Adjust the amount of red chilli powder and sugar you add according to your liking, depending on how sweet or spicy you would like your biscuit roti to be. 

2. The ingredients that go into the biscuit roti filling can vary. You can also add in grated coconut, dry coconut pieces too into the filling. But if you add them then’ll have to finish them within a day of preparation or else biscuit roti tends to get spoilt fast with coconut in it and the biscuit roti may not turn out as crispy as without grated coconut in it. 

3. You can also make these biscuit roti with wheat flour to make them healthy.

4. If the plain flour and semolina you’re using to make biscuit roti are old then I would recommend you to sieve them first to avoid any clump formation. 


Find more Udupi, Mangalorean tea time snack recipes here.


Tags: Mangalore food, Udupi cuisine, tea time snack, dabbe khaan, snack, deep fried, biscuit roti.