Here’s a recipe. I learned to make this with a family at the Pushkar fair and a small group Srishti students and faculty. It’s a traditional Rajasthani dish of dal and baati which is like a heavy bread or roll. You could probably make small baati (ours were the size of tennis balls) and bake them (no bondfire as in the recipe). However for authenticity, you could do what we did which was cook the baati in a heap of hot, glowing camel dung. The trick is finding a herd of camels to get the fuel from. Although at Pushkar it wasn’t a problem. Very tasty!
Daal:
1/2 kg moong daal (green gram)
onions, 1/2 kg spinach (shredded), coriander, garlic (crushed),
2 tomatoes, chillies
dhaniya (coriander seeds) powder, turmeric
soak the daal for 5 mins
boil 7 glasses of water with 2 teaspoons of salt
add the daal to it
chop onions and green chillies
heat them in 4 tablespoons of oil
add 1 tbspn dhaniya powder
1 tbspn red chilli powder
a little turmeric
1/2 kg shredded spinach, 2 tomatoes
when the daal has boiled enough, add chopped coriander leaves and mix
daal seasoning: heat 2 tbspn oil, add jeera (cumin seeds) when oil is hot enough and add the chopped garlic. add it all to the daal when ready.
Baati:
1 and 1/2 kg atta (wheat flour)
add some salt and water and knead the dough (thick consistency)
make balls of the dough.
cook them on a bonfire (or bake).
optional: then lightly fry the baati in ghee (clarified butter) or regular butter
you can also make a nice sweet dish to eat with the dal by then tearing bits of the baati and mixing well with jaggery (unprocessed sugar).


