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Cereals and bread from Himachal Pradesh, India

Himachal fermented wheat breads (bhatooru, siddu, chilra, marchu)भटूरू

Wheat flour and water are kneaded with malera, a traditional acidic inoculum, and left for about ten hours in the laboratory version while lactic acid bacteria and yeast sour and raise it. The leavened dough is baked into bhatooru, the everyday bread of rural Himachal, or deep-fried for festivals. Siddu, chilra and marchu are other traditional fermented foods of the state.

Fully documentedCereals and bread10 h

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe laboratory bhatooru dough of Savitri and Bhalla 2013, made with malera collected in Kullu. The sources give no household amounts.
Wheat flour450 g[savitri2013]
Water300 ml[savitri2013]
Malera (traditional inoculum)50 gAn acidic dough, pH 3.7, with 46 % moisture[savitri2013]
Startermalera, a traditional inoculum (an acidic dough) made of lactic acid bacteria and yeast

Total time across the recorded steps: 10 h

Start
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What changes: A piece of sour malera is kneaded into wheat flour and water

Step 1 of 4
Knead flour and water with malera
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacilli
Leuconostocs

Output: inoculated dough, about 500 ml in volume.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Wheat flour and water are kneaded with malera, a traditional acidic inoculum, and left for about ten hours in the laboratory version while lactic acid bacteria and yeast sour and raise it. The leavened dough is baked into bhatooru, the everyday bread of rural Himachal, or deep-fried for festivals. Siddu, chilra and marchu are other traditional fermented foods of the state. Made in 4 steps over 10 h. The longest step, leave the dough to ferment, takes 10 h (Savitri 2013) and runs at 25 °C (Savitri 2013). Saccharomyces cerevisiae (MTCC 7840), present from the start and leavening the dough and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum (MTCC 8296); an L. plantarum strain was also isolated from bhatooru in a later survey do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step10 hReported[savitri2013]Leave the dough to ferment
Temperature25 °CReported[savitri2013]Leave the dough to ferment
AciditypH 5.9 → 4.18Measured[savitri2013]Leave the dough to ferment

What makes this one different

These breads rise on malera, a traditional acidic dough inoculum, which carries a mixed culture of L. plantarum, Leuconostoc and S. cerevisiae, so the dough is both soured and leavened by one starter.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Festive deep-fried bhatooruThe same fermented dough deep-fried instead of baked for festive occasions.
  • Siddu, chilra, marchu and seeraOther fermented foods named for Himachal Pradesh. Chilra is a fermented pancake of barley or buckwheat and seera a fermented wheat product; lactobacilli were isolated from both (L. casei from both, L. paracasei from chilra). Seera is made by soaking wheat grains in water for 2–3 days, grinding them and settling out the starch and protein, which are sun-dried; the dried material is cooked as a sweet dish in hot ghee (Sharma et al. 2014).

Safety

The pH falls to about 4.2 during fermentation, which the authors note limits unwanted microbes; the dough is then cooked.

Hazards the sources name: Bacillus cereus reported as a minor organism early in fermentation.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

History
The sources we found do not record its history.
  1. [savitri2013] Savitri, Bhalla T.C. 2013, Characterization of bhatooru, a traditional fermented food of Himachal Pradesh, microbiological and biochemical aspects, 3 Biotech 3:247–254, doi:10.1007/s13205-012-0092-2paper
  2. [kumari2016] Kumari A., Angmo K., Monika, Bhalla T.C. 2016, Probiotic attributes of indigenous Lactobacillus spp. isolated from traditional fermented foods and beverages of north-western Himalayas using in vitro screening and principal component analysis, J Food Sci Technol 53(5):2463–2475, doi:10.1007/s13197-016-2231-ypaper
  3. [sharma2014] Sharma N., Gupta A., Handa S. 2014, An exploration of rich microbial diversity of rare traditional functional foods of Trans Himalayan state of India with proven additional probiotic effect, International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences 3(9):999–1014paper