Combine salt and flour. Add water a little at a time to knead semi soft dough. Shift it in a plate and rub it against the surface using your palm. Do this procedure for atleast 5 minutes for best results. You may add a little water or wet your hands if the dough does not feel smooth enough.
Heat roti tava over gas stove. Place a bowl of water near the stove. Pinch out a portion of dough and make it smooth by rolling between your palms. Dust it with flour and place it on the rolling board.
Flatten it a bit. Start patting on the sides gently with flat fingers. Give 1 pat and push turn slightly, give another pat and again push turn a bit by twisting your hand at the joint. Ensure that you have enough dusting or else tapping and turning will not be easy.
Continue to tap and turn until the rotlo is evenly flat, big and thin enough. Check the centre part, tap it a bit if it looks too thick there. If your rotlo looks too thin on a side or if it looks deshaped, you can gently push inwards at the rim and tap to make it even on all sides as shown in picture no. 2.
Gently Place your palm on rotlo, lift the board and turn over to shift rotlo from the board to your palm. Keep your fingers wide apart to support rotlo well or else it will break.
Place it on tava by supporting rotlo with both hands. Place the bottom side up. Pour about a tsp water over it and gently spread all around. This step is done to merge remainings of dusting with rotlo so the rotlo does not have dry cracks on it. Let side 1 cook mildly and then gently flip over.
Allow side 2 to cook slightly more. Then remove tava from the stove and place rotlo on direct flame with side 1 placing downwards. Increase the flame and let rotlo puff. Do not wait for too long for it to puff because it may not puff if something went wrong somewhere. Flip and cook on the other side. Repeat the process until it is cooked well on both sides.
Take it off the flame, apply much ghee. You can even tear the top layer to let the ghee get absorbed in the base. Serve it hot. Rotla goes really well with ghee, gol (jaggery), garlic chutney, pickled stuffed chillies, pickled turmeric etc. It goes well with methi-ringan nu shak, ringan-bataka nu shak, olo etc.
Tips : 1. if your rotlo has a bubble at the centre after placing it on tava(pic 1), understand that it's too thin there or it was not placed gently enough and that's how it got an air bubble. 2. If you try to flip, but it is still stuck hard to the tava or it feels wet when you touch it, understand that it's not yet cooked enough to flip.
3. If rotlo does not puff, there may be 3 reasons - * the rotlo was too thin/thick or was not tapped evenly all around. * Side one was over cooked or side two was undercooked. * The flour was too old to use. 4. If your rotlo gets brittle and full of cracks while cooking - * the dough is too stiff. * the flour is coarse. 5. Try to use slightly flat tava. Rotlo gets overcooked in the centre while the sides are still uncooked if the tava is deep. See in the pic..
You may have to frequently move rotlo on the sides keeping the part to be cooked at the centre with such deep tava. See the pics...
