Add water gradually and gather the dough together. Once it comes together add salt and knead well.
Add water little at a time and use your heel of your hand for kneading. Do not add all the water at once as it might make the dough soft and sticky.
Kneading the dough well is very important to get soft phulkas so continue to knead the dough. Keep on adding water as required.
Knead the dough till it becomes soft, pliable and smooth in texture, there should not be any cracks. Cover and let it rest for 15 minutes.
Rolling out the dough
After 15 minutes knead the dough again and now make small balls from the dough and roll the balls in the palms of your hands and flatten it.
Turn on the gas stove and heat tawa or skillet on medium heat.
While tawa is getting hot place the dough on rolling board. Take one ball and dust it lightly with some wheat flour and start rolling the phulka roti.
Dust the half way rolled phulka with dry wheat flour again to prevent it from sticking to the rolling surface.
Now roll it out again into a round thin disc. The trick is to roll the edges while giving it round shape. Our roti is ready to roast.
Cooking the phulkas on gas stove
Once the tawa is sufficient hot place the rolled out dough on it. Place the roti carefully so that it does not get folded.
When the upper surface of the roti starts changing its colour and you can see the bubbles appear on the surface flip the roti to the other side. Allow it to cook for 15-20seconds until the bottom part turns light brown.
Put the flame to high and now hold the roti with a tong, remove the tawa from the gas stove and keep the first side which was cooked, directly on fire. The roti will start to puff. Flip it over and cook the other side directly on flame again for 2-3 seconds. The phulka roti is done.
Don’t overdo it as roti will get burnt and will not become soft.
Remove from flame and smear it with melted ghee, wrapped them in a soft cloth keep in a container like casserole or in a roti basket to keep warm. This will also prevent the roti from drying or becoming soggy.
Repeat the same process for the rest of the dough.
Serve the phulka roti hot with any vegetable curry, daal, lentil etc.
What, if you don't have open flame burner or gas stove??? Here are the tips to cook phulkas directly on tawa.
Once you put the rolled dough in the pan when you start seeing small bubbles, flip them and wait few more bubbles on other side too.
Now increase the heat to high and press lightly with dry cloth all around as shown in the picture. Now you can see the phulkas are puffed up. Don't keep this for long time after you increase the flame as it burns the phulka.
Video
Notes
While kneading if you feel that the dough is sticky, you can add a little more atta and if you feel that the dough is dry and hard, you can add little water. Dough should neither be too soft nor too hard. If your rotis do not puff up, they still taste great so do not get disappointed. Rolled the roti evenly all around with equal pressure into a thin disc because a perfectly rolled roti will puff up nicely. While rolling the roti there should be no holes or puncture in the rolled out dough. The roti will not puff up. 5. Making phulka or roti is not difficult. All you need is practice.