Ragi roti with miso and avocado butter
These freshly cooked rotis, smeared with creamy, savoury avocado and miso butter have become my go-to breakfast, snack or lunch. Making rotis might sound like hard work but this recipe is so easy you’ll be impressing guests with your hot-off-the-press flatbreads in no time.
I love the nutty flavour of ragi – a small brown finger millet from Africa and Asia. It can be quite dense by itself in recipes, so I like to mix it 50:50 with either rice or gram flour. You can also mix it with flour from an older variety of wheat, such as spelt or einkorn, for a roti that puffs up slightly – these varieties are easier to digest than modern wheat and naturally lower in gluten. Naturally gluten-free flours tend to be dry, so that is why I’ve used yoghurt and ghee to bind it together. My mum grew up using mashed avocado like butter, picking them straight from the tree in her garden. Despite that little story, I didn’t eat the ‘green mush’ until I was 12 and my auntie told me how good it was for my skin. Vanity won and now it’s a favourite. Adding the salty umami miso makes this savoury butter taste a bit like creamy Marmite (says my Marmite-loving other half). You can also serve the rotis with your favourite stews, soups or pakti bowls.
Serves 2
38g (¼ cup) ragi flour
38g (¼ cup) rice flour or gram flour
¼ tsp sea salt
½ tbsp ghee, at room temperature
¼ tsp nigella seeds
1 tbsp homemade yoghurt (see here)
2 tbsp water
FOR THE ‘BUTTER’
1 large ripe avocado, de-stoned
1 tbsp dark or sweet miso
splash of lemon or lime juice (optional)
TO SERVE
freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp parsley, or your favourite herb
½ carrot, grated (optional)
1 Sift both flours together and mix well. Add the salt, ghee, nigella seeds and yoghurt. Starting with 1 tablespoon, add the water a little at time and mix together with your fingers until you get a soft elastic dough. Divide into eight balls about the size of a large walnut.
2 Cover a chopping board with baking parchment and roll out each ball into a roti using a rolling pin. If the dough is very sticky, I use another piece of parchment on top to stop it sticking to the rolling pin – better than adding more flour, which can make it too dry.
3 Cook each roti on a hot griddle pan for 2 minutes or so until lightly toasted. Turn the roti over and cook for 1 minute on the other side. You can also start them in a pan and then finish them in a toaster!
4 While the rotis are cooking, make the butter: mash the avocado and miso together and add a tiny splash of water to loosen, if needed. Taste and adjust the seasoning. If you’re making this in advance, add a splash of lemon or lime juice to keep the colour.
5 The rotis are best served immediately while hot, so simply spread a generous amount of the butter and finish with lots of black pepper, herbs and grated carrot, if using.
FEELING
KAPHA
Replace the avocado with 200g of cooked kale and blend.
TIP
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This also works with buckwheat flour instead of ragi flour, or 50:50 gram and rice flour.
