Rustic and healthy nachni roti made with ragi aka finger millet flour and whole wheat flour.

Recipe Snapshot

  • Prep time: 15 minutes
  • Cook time: 25 minutes
  • Total time: 40 minutes
  • Yield: 15 · 15 rotis
  • Category: Main Course
  • Cuisine: Indian

Ingredients

  • 2 cups ragi flour ((finger millet flour or nachni))
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt (or add as required)
  • 1.5 cups hot boiling water + 1 to 2 tablespoons (or add as required)
  • ghee or oil as required

Method

making dough

  1. Take 2 cups ragi flour and 1 cup atta in a parat or a large bowl. Also add 1 teaspoon salt or add as required.
  2. Mix everything with a spoon. Add 1.5 cups hot boiling water.
  3. Mix with a spoon. After mixing wait for a few minutes till heat is enough to handle.
  4. Then begin to knead when the mixture is still hot. Once you are able to form the dough, then keep on sprinkling warm water bit by bit and knead till you get a soft dough.
  5. The dough should be soft. Cover and let dough rest for 20 minutes. then make medium sized balls from the dough.

rolling ragi roti

  1. Flatten the ball. Sprinkle some whole wheat flour or ragi flour on the dough ball. Turn on the gas stove and put the tawa to make it hot. The tawa has to be sufficiently hot to make soft rotis.
  2. While tawa is getting hot, start rolling the dough ball into a flat round circle. Add more flour if required, so that while rolling the dough does not break.
  3. In case the dough starts sticking to the rolling pin, then sprinkle some flour on the roti evenly and continue to roll it.

cooking ragi roti

  1. Place the roti on the hot tawa. Keep the flame to high.
  2. First roast one side. It should be less than half cooked or about one-fourth cooked.
  3. Turn and cook the other side. This side should be a little bit more cooked than the first side. Some brown spots should be visible.
  4. Now hold the roti with tongs and keep the first side which was cooked, directly on fire. Keep on moving roti with the tongs roasting the edges as well.
  5. The roti will start to puff.
  6. When the roti has puffed well, then turn and keep the other side on fire and roast roti for some seconds. Avoid burning the rotis and also don’t overdo the fire roasting as then these rotis become dense.
  7. Remove and place them in a roti basket/roti dabba or casserole.
  8. Spread some ghee on the rotis. Applying ghee or oil keep these nachni roti soft. Rotis made with this method is ideally served hot.
  9. If you cannot serve them hot, then you can keep them in a container that keeps food warm like a casserole or in a roti basket. Make rotis this way and stack them in the roti dabba if not serving straight away.
  10. Serve ragi roti with any indian vegetable dish or dal of your choice.

Kiyaan Singh’s Kitchen Note

Keep this recipe as a working base: cook once as written, then adjust spice, texture, and serving style for your own table.