Papadum

As I had mentioned in my last post, I challenged myself to cook Indian food everyday for a week. Luckily, there are several Indian grocery stores in Seattle area since we have a good-sized Indian community here. I was able to get all of the ingredients from one of the Indian grocery stores. I also found my favorite Indian flatbread there. One of the Indian restaurants I go to usually gives a crispy flatbread with some dipping sauce to every customer as we wait for our food. It's like the equivalent of bread sticks at the Olive Garden or tortilla chips in a Mexican restaurant... One day, I asked the waiter what the name of this bread was and all I remembered was that it sounded like 'paper.' As it turned out it's called 'papad' or 'papadum'. According to Wikipedia, "they are typically made from flour or paste derived from either lentil, chickpea, black gram (urid flour), rice or potato.

This is how the package for the one I bought looks like. (There were several varieties.) The picture of the kid on the package makes me think that eating this is some sort of punishment... but it really tastes good. (I don't know what the creepy bunny has to do with this bread either...)

My Indian friend taught me that the easiest way to prepare it is to just microwave them piece by piece. It's fun to watch this paper like dry dough turn into nice crispy flatbread. It's kinda like popping popcorn...?

I particularly like the ones with cumin seeds. If you have never had one of these, I hope you'll give it a try!