The August-November period has quite a few auspicious days in the Hindu calendar - Janamashtmi being one of them. In the weeks following Janamashtmi, another auspicious day is observed in the Dogra community - Bacch Dua. The story behind the day is quite interesting, based on what I've read and heard. Turns out, as legend would have it - there was some confusion between a woman and her mother-in-law regarding the offerings to be made to the Gods along with their prayers. Instead of offering fish (Machh) as an offering, they accidentally offered a male calf (Bacch). The women ask the Gods for forgiveness before the mother cow arrives back to the fields. With symbolism kept in mind, it's a day mothers pray for the well being of their children.
I have dedicated the first paragraph of this post to Bacch Dua because one of the dishes prepared on the day is Rutt (u is pronounced like the "oo" in cook) - fundamentally a sweet flatbread made with jaggery and fennel seeds. This is my guilty pleasure, and an honest admission is that I have wanted to write about this for a very long time. I guess the chance has finally come my way. This should not feel too alien to you if you are familiar with how flatbreads are made.
Before I walk you through the ingredients and steps, here are some relevant metrics for the recipe.
Difficulty - Medium.
Prep time - 30 mins.
Cooking time - 20 mins.
Servings - 4 Rutt, so around 2 servings.
Ingredients
Water - 4 tbsp
Whole wheat flour - 1.25 cups, and some more for preparing our benchtop
Jaggery powder - 0.5 cup
Fennel seeds - 1 tsp
Ghee - 2 tbsp
Neutral oil for cooking
The Process
Let's start with kneading the dough
Add the jaggery powder and water to a bowl and mix them well. Keep this aside for 30 odd minutes until the jaggery dissolves.
In another bowl, mix the flour, fennel seeds and 1 tbsp Ghee. Mix it well so that the fennels seeds and Ghee are uniformly spread.
Add the jaggery and water solution into the dry ingredients bowl. Mix everything well.
Once mixed, start kneading the dough. The dough will be sticky because of the jaggery present in it. Keep kneading until the dough is smooth. The dough will be a bit firm and hold its shape because of the lack of water.
The dough does not need any time to set and can be used instantly.
Cooking the Rutt
Prepare your benchtop for rolling dough on it by applying some dry flour on it. This ensures that the dough won't stick to the surface.
With a rolling pin, roll the dough into a nice circle, around 10 cms in diameter. The thickness is completely up to you; I usually go for around 0.3 cm thickness, i.e. on the skinnier side. Another traditional part of Rutt is that we usually press down on the Rutt with a cookie cutter (or anything circular) and make incisions on it. It should be visible in the photo above as well.
On a medium heat setting, prepare a non-stick pan. Once the pan is sufficiently hot, add the flatbread dough into the pan. Add some neutral oil to the top side, say half a teaspoon and spread it nicely. The dough will soak in the oil very quickly.
Flip the bread now and then until both sides are as brown as shown in the image.
Use a paper towel to absorb any excess oil once you take the Rutt out of the pan.
Rinse and repeat until you have made as many as your dough allows.
That is it; your Rutt are ready - Bon appetite. As always, I'd love to hear what you have to say in the comments down below. See you in the next one.