Aloo roti

Potato roti is yet another delicious comfort food in the very long list of culinary nurturing my Mamma lavishes.

Punjabis love bread and have many varieties; the southerners prefer rice. We enjoy fashion and keeping up with trends but the low carb diet is one we could never follow. Going a day without a roti, puri, paratha, kulcha, naan or another doughy creation is impossible to imagine, let alone actually make such a sacrifice. No matter the variety of roti (which means all kinds of Indian bread), it's the perfect companion to all the side dishes; it's needed to scoop up the vegetables and mop up the gravy and chutneys. If really desperate, we'll even settle for a slice of 'western' bread.

The dough for the aloo roti is kneaded from stone-ground whole wheat flour. Mamma dusts a bit of flour onto the stone kitchen bench and makes a ball out of the dough. She presses down on the ball and rolls out a roti. Into the middle of the circle she adds the mixture of potatoes, diced onions, coriander, green chillies and her own spice mix. She brings in all the ends of the dough circle and it looks like a money bag. Then with her rolling pin, she rolls it out gently to be flat again. Onto a cast iron plate, she adds a dollop of ghee until it's sizzling and then places the roti. She flips it over regularly until it's cooked on both sides and crispy.

We had the potato roti for breakfast with tamarind chutney and the pot set yoghurt Mamma makes fresh every day followed by a cup of steaming hot cardamom tea.