Bhutan Trip Day 5 - 27 June 2015 Learning how to make Sel Roti :)

As Neela had to go to work on Saturday morning, Devi was afraid that I'd get bored that morning at home. So she suggested me to learn on how to make Sel Roti.

Devi and her handmade Sel Roti :)

"Sel Roti (Nepali: सेल रोटी) is a Nepali traditional home-made, sweet, ring-shaped rice bread/doughnut. It is mostly prepared during Tihar, a widely celebrated Hindu festival in Nepal. It is made of rice flour with adding customized flavors. A semi liquid rice flour dough is usually prepared by adding milk, water, cooking oil, sugar, butter, cardamom, cloves, bananas and other flavors of personal choice."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sel_roti

Flour required to make Sel Roti dough :)

So, the above picture showed the ingredients required for the dough mixing. The details were as per follow:
1. Wheat sooji or rice flour - 500g
2. Maida flour - 500g
3. Atta flour - 500g
4. Baking powder - pinch
5. Sugar - 200g 

Devi mixed the dough and water to make Sel Roti

Mix the above flours into a pot and add hot water little by little. Keep mixing it up so the texture won't get lumpy (smooth) and thick.

Spices used for Sel Roti

Spices she used were as per follow:
1. Cardamom seed or elachi - few pieces and remove the seed
2. Clove - few pieces

Stir fry both ingredients in a low heat pan. Crush it until it becomes powdery form. Add the spices into the dough mixtures and mix it well.

See the short clip above. The texture was something like that so that you could shape the Sel Roti in anti clockwise direction as above. It looked easy on her but when I tried myself, yalamaaa....., instead of becoming round shape, mine was becoming heart shape or not even making any known shape hahaha.... But that's the fun of it!!! :)

Later on, Neela suggested me to put the dough mixture into the small plastic water jug where I could pour the dough mixture using the edge of the jug into the hot oil. It could prevent the oil splash on my hands too.

Pour oil into the pan and heat it in low medium heat. As the video shown above, you could see how Devi shaped the Sel Roti onto the hot pan. Using the long stick, she did multiple job turning the Sel Roti around once it became dark brown, lift it out and transferred it into the plate, ready to serve.

Sel Roti - Perfect accompany for my afternoon tea break :)

Dadadada....... Here were my delicious Sel Roti, perfect accompany with my tea for the afternoon tea break. It tasted sweet and had spices flavor in it too. Hhmmm.....

She purposely made the Sel Roti for me as she said that the shape of this dish (round shape) symbolized the reunion again next time (special gifts for family members living away from home), that no matter how far I go, one day eventually I would go back to meet them again, preferably next time at her hometown in southern Bhutan, and during winter time :) That's very sweet of her la!!! ^^

This dish too, was usually made only during big days or Hindu festival, like Deepavali (or Diwali), Dasain, wedding parties, and so on. I considered myself very grateful being able to taste the fresh Sel Roti not waiting until the big days arrived, but as a gifts and inclusion of me as their sister or family members. Thank you Devi for teaching me this. Let's see if I would make it myself one day, here, in Singapore. Thank you, thank you, and thank you!!! :)