Extremely fresh roti: Right off the tawa | Crispier | Steaming Hot
As fresh but smeared with desi ghee for a soft texture is perhaps the top-tier performer in this domain. Still fresh but left slightly more on the flame for some added crispiness and smeared with desi ghee, these fresh as the grass rotis can be kept soft with little crustiness or turned into Indian bread masterpieces by cranking up the crispiness.
Ultra-crispy, the holy grail of ghar ki chapati, allowing desi ghee to gain entry through the crisped, broken surface that allows the ghee to penetrate deeper
If you are someone who does not like the ghee on the roti, you are missing out on life’s simplest and tastiest treats. The non-ghee fresh roti has a substantially shorter lifespan. You are much better off consuming it within a couple of minutes off the tawa.
If your secondary sabzi, following the dal for the day, is a bit gooey, like paneer kee bhurjee or baigan ka bharta, the excessively crispy roti creates the perfect contrast. This is like eating those Mexican wraps where the fillings are a bit saucy & soft, placed carefully inside a bread that is tough.
If you are having your meal in Delhi’s winters, the fresh roti with a few drops of ghee dripping makes up for any cooking deficits. Even yesterday’s leftovers seem to taste better when that perfect blend of cooked dough and a bit of ghee is churned, turned, clawed into, and mercilessly chewn by your teeth.
Not-that-fresh | But Not Stale | Hot & Quite Soft | Not Crispy
It so often happens that there is a time lag of a few minutes from the roti being taken off the tawa and finding its rightful place on my plate, nestled comfortably on the sides by some onion, cucumber, and the primary sabzi for the day. This form of roti is rather acceptable and usually the norm given the crazy schedule where my meal timings have taken a serious battering in the last 4 years. This inherently softer version of Delhi’s chapati might be the mainstay in most households, PGs, workplaces, and across the lunch spread of millions who lunch parked somewhere, and those who have to stand and quickly swallow their food.
For any Indian lady who is proud to be the sole meal-time caretaker of a household, the performance of this not-that-fresh chapati is a testament to their cooking skills. You order the wrong type of atta, and these fresh but not-so-hot rotis will develop a dry texture very quickly. Rolled too thin, these reasonably fresh rotis will lose their softness even sooner. You have to know how our forefathers conquered the art of making chapatis and keeping them fresh beyond a few hours!
Not A Typical Roti | Hybrid Version | Borrowed from Desi Parantha
I hope you have all encountered and supported the cause of the Semi-parantha. If not, there is something unhealthy cooking in your kitchen or in the minds of those trusted with cooking for you. The Semi-parantha is Indian cooking’s gift to those who want a bit of extra flavor to their everyday eating, but without consuming the calorie-dense typical parantha. The Semi-parantha has fewer layers to it. It is not a roti or a wholesome parantha. In this identity crisis lies its beauty.
It is quicker to make and yet delivers the excellence you just would not expect. You can have it for lunch, breakfast, or dinner. However, Semi-paranthas are not the best bet for workplace lunches. Kept a bit thinner and pressed down using minimal oil or ghee, they tend to develop that hard, coarse crustiness quickly. Have them fresh or within a couple of hours from the time of being packed with you in mind. Semi-paranthas will not fail you!
Muchda-Kuchda Rotis are Mom’s Love & Not Artistry
Tracing the evolution of this form of Indian roti, it was found that our overzealous fore-mothers realized that the humble dhaba-wala or the tandoor artist was stealing their thunder. These guys were doing something unbelievably simple and still so impressive that our ancestral women just couldn’t let go. They carefully examined the cooks across North India and realized that these guys would give the fresh, crispy roti a big crush at the end before serving it. The crush would make a slight sound and unevenly distribute the remains of the roti’s upper crust.
To the foodie, this simple torture technique yielded a magical result - the basic roti started looking exotic, as if it had been subjected to handcrafted ingenuity. Enter 2025, and our moms are still doing it. You would imagine forgiving the unsuspecting commercial cooks and letting go of this tactical move, but NO, they still do it, and honestly, it makes the roti taste even better, by at least 17% as per my psychological interpretation and the non-prevalent research team that I have in the underground bunker of a Scottish castle turned laboratory.
Looks like you are roti-wise uneducated & need the enlightenment!
For starters, you have to explore the various forms in which chapati prevails in your life.
- To categorize each, have a few bites sans anything else to uncover the real taste
- Fresh roti with yesterday’s dal vs Morning roti at night with fresh dal is a good learning curve to understand the intricacies
- Try a roti this winter season with nothing but ghee and some sprinkled shakkar…the combination of cereal and sugarcane sweetness is just magical
- Rotis that are too chewy are a big turn–off. The person making them clearly does not know the art
- Roti with achaar is the poorest way to eat it, but remember, the genuinely poor souls might go to sleep without a morsel…count your blessings!
- Rotis play a significant role in keeping you away from the bane of the Western world’s health scare…Dread the Bread!
Roti can be a massive quality check for the non-veg dish prepared at home. This is to test the gravy or the soupy part of the dish, especially the meats. Take a big bite, fold it, and dip it repeatedly until you are sure the roti bite has succumbed to your BDSM actions. Now, eat the roti without any meat or flesh. If it tastes damn good on the first bite…your dish is most likely to be loved.
Some Recommended Roti Explorations & Don’t Dos’ for You
- No combination with curd impresses - just stay away
- Try a warm one with some fresh mustard sauce smeared on it
- Wrap half a roti around a big mass of extra spicy pulao - just try it once
- Rotis don’t handle well with any type of salad - definitely worth a miss
- Never end a meal with a sabzi-less bite - kills the entire journey of supper
- Ask your chief of staff to try preparing the dough with some milk
Small morsels of roti in a big bowl of soupy black grams win over 30 minutes spent with friends talking about EMIs and smoking away
For once, compliment the women in your home for the Roti itself and not reserve the kind words for 7-star dishes - without that nonchalant piece of dough, you wouldn’t have grown up if you happened to have a middle-class Indian upbringing!