Chitaps – East Indian Rice Crepes – Handkerchief Bread

I love chitaps, always have, always will. They’re sweet and light to eat and look like handkerchiefs. They’re especially popular at East Indian dinners and Christmas celebrations. So instead of getting them from our local East Indian auntie from the Sunday bazaar like we do almost every week, we try our best to make them at home sometimes. You know, then we can have as many as we want.

Anyways, mom and dad are always there to help me with adjusting the recipe for the chitaps or pollas. I don’t really know why anyone calls the chitiaps pollas though. Dad says even sannas and other types of bread are referred to as pollas sometimes. Anyone know why, please let me know.

But, I also figured, why not make them gluten-free this time, and make them edible for the friend of mine who is a celiac and has a gluten allergy? How do you make gluten-free chitaps or gluten-free rice crepes? Simple you know, skip the wheat or maida and the beer yeast. Turns out, it wasn’t that difficult to do.

And apart from the few trial pieces that were scrapped because they weren’t binding enough, I ended up making 83 in the first batch. Yeah, 83! Well, shh. I naturally distributed them to the cousins and got a seal of approval. So here’s our new gluten-free chitap recipe.

A note though: If you don’t need the chitaps or pollas to become gluten-free, use one part maida (wheat flour) and two parts rice flour. (The maida needs to be a third of the total weight).

Chitaps or Rice Crepes Recipe

Let’s start with our yeast. Pour a tablespoon of sugar and warm water into a bowl and let the sugar dissolve. Once the sugar dissolves, add the yeast to it, stir it, and set aside for 10 minutes. If the yeast starts to bubble, it means it’s good and active. Leave it be, and continue with the rest of the recipe.

In a vessel, mix your rice flour and sugar. You can either grind the rice flour at home or have it store-bought. We use 100 grams of sugar because we want it sweet, but you can increase or reduce the amount of sugar you want. Make sure you add at least a bit of sugar though because during the fermentation the yeast eats the sugar to produce carbon dioxide which makes the chitiaps fluffier.

Add the yeast mixture and stir well. Then add in either milk or coconut juice or coconut milk and stir again. Leave overnight or for 4 to 6 hours at least.

In the morning, add salt and eggs and stir. You can add a bit more milk or coconut juice if needed.

If you’re a vegetarian, you can skip the eggs and the yeast. Just follow a slightly different method here. It’s the traditional Maharashtrian way to make ghavans or ghavani or the South Indian version called neer dosa. Soak the rice overnight or for 5 to 6 hours, then drain the water, grind the rice to a paste and use it with just water and salt. The taste of ghavans only differs slightly from the chitaps or pollas which are on the sweeter side.

By the way, being free of fermentation, ghavans are often eaten by people who have joint pains and cannot eat fermented food.

Okay, back to the chitaps. I make some of them using the plain and simple recipe, while I add rosemary or oregano to others. I prefer the plain ones the best, next the oregano flavoured, and lastly the rosemary flavoured. What’s your preference?

Next steps. Heat a cast iron pan, add a spoonful of oil and spoon some batter into it. I like using coconut oil because it adds to the flavour of the chitaps. Roll the pan around till the batter covers every side. Leave it to cook till lightly brown and then flip it over into a plate.

This is what the underside looks like. This was one of the first few test pieces; notice the irregular shape. Haha!

Anyways, the rest of the pieces turned out pretty round and tasty. In 3 hours, I ended up making 83 in all. But who’s counting, right?

Yeah, I know they look like they are of different sizes. I was using two different cast iron pans.

One more pic to show you, just because I got click happy. Haha! This version of the East Indian bread called chitaps goes really well with sorpotel or duck moile or khudi curry or tamriad or vindaloo or chilli fry of Bombay ducks just about anything.

Anyways, if you get around to trying out this recipe, come back and let me know how it went. Are you now in love with these light and fluffy gluten free rice crepes called chitaps?

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