Kulcha naan | Plain Kulcha | Butter Kulcha

Kulcha is a traditional delicacy of Punjabi cuisine. This is a flatbread made with all purpose flour (maida), which is popular in all over India. This is famous street food in the streets of Punjab and Delhi and served with yellow peas curry. Other predominantly common flatbread in India is naan. They may look similar and may be hard to differentiate between the two. The main difference between them is that kulcha can be stuffed with aloo, paneer or onion. Both naan and kulcha are enjoyed in the whole world.

These soft, fluffy kulcha is easy to prepare. Many people think that it can not be made at home as it requires tandoor or gas oven. But believe me it can be prepared on tawa or girdle. Yeast is not used in the leavening of this bread. I have fermented it by using baking powder and baking soda.
Like naan this is also made with basic ingredients like flour, raising agents, water, curd and sugar and flavoured with black sesame seeds or kalonji. The shape is usually oval but can also be round. Once it is cooked, apply butter or ghee on top of it.

There are so many variations of kulchas like Amritsari kulcha, paneer kulcha and onion kulcha. It works amazing with Amritsari chole or matar curry. This can be served as breakfast or evening snacks.

Course: Main course
Cuisine: North Indian
Prep Time: 2 hours
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Servings: 4

Ingredients:

2 cup maida (all purpose flour)
2 tbsp. curd
¼ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
¾ tsp. salt
½ tsp. sugar
2 tbsp. oil
water, for kneading
butter for spreading

Instructions:

Sift maida in a mixing bowl. Add baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar in a bowl. Mix well. Add curd and oil.
Put little amounts of water at a time in the mixture and knead to a smooth and soft dough. You don't need to knead it more. Grease the dough with oil, cover and keep aside for at least 2 hours in warm place to ferment.
The dough will rise and more than double in size. Punch the dough to release the air. Make medium size balls from the dough.
Heat an iron tawa on medium flame. Dust and roll the dough ball to round or oval shape using a rolling pin.

You can give the shape as you prefer and make sure do not make too thin nor thick.
Apply some water on it. Place this on hot tawa with  water applied side on tawa. The kulcha will stick to the tawa.

When the base is browned and cooked completely, turn the tawa upside down over the high flame. Cook kulcha till golden brown spots appear.

Remove using a tong.
If you prefer, you can apply butter generously on the kulcha. You can serve this plain with your favourite curry.

Tips:

• Once it cools down, it becomes chewy and hard so serve this warm.
• Tawa should be very hot before you keep the kulcha on it. 
• Use Iron tawa to make kulcha because it will not stick to non stick tawa and will fell down on flame.