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When I saw Broken Wheat Idlis in Anjali’s blog, I had to try it immediately because we all like cracked wheat very much.

These dosas are very easy to prepare. Just soak 1/2 cup of urad daal and grind it. At the end add 2 cups of cracked wheat also and grind it to combine well with the urad daal batter. The first time I made it, I also soaked the cracked wheat, just like soaking idli rava while preparing regular idlis. But it
became so sticky and stringy and I had tough time mixing it with the urad daal batter. But finally it all came together. At first I greased just one idli plate and poured the batter in the 4 moulds and steamed it a little longer than the rice idlis. Even though it was flat, the taste was very good. I think I should have prepared a nice thick batter.

So I ended up preparing the Broken Wheat Dosas she has mentioned, using the same batter and my vote is definitely for the dosas. I used the reddish/brownish color cracked wheat and the dosas had an amazing golden color. The speciality of this batter is, you can make nice crispy dosas as well as soft sponge like dosas. The cracked wheat we get here is not fine like regular rava (sooji), so I had to run it in the blender for a couple of minutes, to get a fine texture.

The second time I prepared the batter without soaking the cracked wheat, incorporated it to the urad daal batter directly and ran the wet grinder for a couple of minutes. This time also we loved the dosas. This is way healthy than our regular rice dosas and good for diabetics also.

Anjali, Your Recipe Rocks and this recipe is definitely a keeper.

Last week I tried Cham’s Wheat Idlis and it came out very well.  Thank you very much for such an easy and healthy recipe Cham.  Your recipe rocks!  Needless to say this is going to be a regular in our house hereafter.

I saw this recipe in Woman’s Day magazine under Heart Healthy Recipes category.  I wanted to try this recipe because it had bulgur wheat as the main ingredient, which I have not tasted before.  I use cracked wheat regurlarly, so I always have it in home.  I thought that both were same.  So before using it in the recipe, I wanted to be sure and check if there was any difference between bulgur wheat and cracked wheat and found out the following; (Source: www.epicureantable.com)

Bulgur Wheat:
Partially hulled whole wheat kernels that are soaked, then steamed (hence pre-cooked if you will), dried and then crushed are called bulghur.  It requires no or little cooking.  Though modern processes involve oven drying or roasting some villages still sun dry bulghur on their rooftops. 

Cracked Wheat:
Raw whole wheat berries that are crushed to varying qualities of texture are called cracked wheat and require cooking.  These are also found in 3 grades of coarseness: fine, medium and coarse, the choice of which depends on use and preference.

To simplify it even more bulgur is wheat cracked after cooking and drying, whereas the wheat is cracked in raw stage for cracked wheat.
 
Are they interchangeable? 
This depends on whether the recipe requires cooking or not and your own degree of purism.  A salad recipe such as tabooli is uncooked, and so requires true bulghur as do recipes where bulghur is brought to the boil, cooked for a moment then left to rest off heat to swell as in a pilaf.   Recipes requiring longer cooking times or coarse grain bulghur can be replaced with cracked wheat, but will need more cooking time.
 
But both bulghur and cracked wheat are excellent sources of fibre, minerals and vitamins for your diet.

Moving on to the recipe,  I have scaled down the measurements given in the original recipe; still we had a lot of chili.  I made it for dinner and it was very filling.

Ingredients:
Water – 3 cups
Bulgur Wheat – ½ cup
Olive Oil – 2 teaspoon
Onion, chopped – ½ cup
Red Pepper, chopped – ½ cup
Chili Powder – 1 tablespoon or as per taste
Garlic, minced – 1 tspn
Ground Cumin – 1 tspn
Water – 2 cups
Crushed Tomatoes – 1 cup
Pumpkin Puree (canned) – 1 cup
Zucchini, medium, diced – 1
Frozen Corn, ½ cup
Black Beans (canned), drained and rinsed – 1 cup
Cilantro, chopped – ¼ cup

Accompaniments/Optional:
Reduced-fat Cheddar
Reduced-fat sour cream

Procedure:
1.  Put 3 cups of the waer and bulgur in a medium microwave-safe bowl.  Cover and microwave on high until bulgur is tender, about 13 minutes.

2.  Meanwhile, heat oil in a large nonstick skillet.  Add onion and pepper; saute 5 minutes.

3.  Add chili powder, garlic and cumin; saute until fragrant.

4.  Add remaining 2 cups water, the tomatoes, pumpkin, zucchini and corn; bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

5.  Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are tender.

6.  Stir in beans and bulgur; heat through.

7.  Remove from heat and stir in cilantro.

My Notes:
My husband loved the chili.  The only thing I didn’t like was the flavor of the red pepper.  I will be trying it without the red pepper next time.