Easy Goan Rice Bhakri Recipe

Goan Gluten Free Flatbread

Let me show you how to make an old and traditional Goan breakfast favorite — Rice Bhakri. This tasty flatbread is made with parboiled rice and fresh coconut and is mildly sweet. Simple ingredients, but the bhakri is full of flavor and nostalgia too for me. Because as a schoolgirl I enjoyed it to my heart’s content during the summer holidays in Goa.

Goan rice bhakris are not just tasty and super simple to prepare, they’re also gluten free. So do give this Goan gluten free flatbread recipe a shot. Just two main ingredients and very few steps to prepare it. It’s one of the simplest breakfast recipes you could make.

Other breakfast time recipes you could check out are Goan patoli, rice flour dosas, Goan polle, Goan koiloreo, and oats dosas and uttapams.

Ingredients

¾ cup (140g) ukda rice (parboiled rice)

¾ cup (75g) grated fresh coconut

½ tsp salt

3 tbsp sugar

⅓ cup water, approx.

A little ghee or oil

Palm leaves

Procedure

1. Wash the rice well and soak it in plenty of water overnight or for at least five hours.
2. Drain off the water and then transfer the rice to a grinder jar with a little of the water. Grind for a minute. Add the remaining water and grind till you have a thick slightly grainy batter.
3. Add 1/3 of the coconut to the batter and grind everything for a minute.
4. Transfer the batter to a bowl and to it add the salt, sugar, and the remaining grated coconut. Mix well. The batter should be thick.
5. To fry the Goan rice bhakri the traditional way between banana leaves, cut two banana leaf pieces each the size of the pan or tawa on which you’ll fry the bhakris. I’m using an old thick bottomed frying pan.
6. Place one piece on the pan with the smooth surface on top and then lightly grease it with a little ghee for added flavour. (This is an optional step.)
7. Transfer half of the batter to this leaf and spread it out to a thickness of ½ an inch with wet fingers.
8. Grease the smooth side of the other leaf piece with ghee and cover the batter with it, placing the leaf on it with the greased surface down.
9. Set the pan on the stove and heat it on a medium low flame. Fry the bhakri for around 5 to 6 minutes and then flip it to fry the other side for 4 minutes. Remove the leaf piece from the top of the bhakri and invert the fried bhakri on a wire rack. This is to prevent moisture from condensing on the underside of the bhakri.
10. Goan rice bhakris can also be fried directly on a greased pan or tawa but for a slightly shorter time – for around 4 to 5 minutes on the first side and around 3 minutes on the other side.
11. But whichever method you opt for, make sure that the batter and the bhakri are both thick.

Enjoy!