Rontas and Thoy | Rice-flour Pooris and Lenthils | Konkani Dish

One of my favourite dishes while growing up is Rontas and Thoy. This delicious pairing made in food heaven belongs to the Konkani cuisine. Its probably the Konkani counter part of Poori Sagu.

Rontas is a crisp flat bread made of rice flour that is deep fried. And Thoy is a deliciously thick and flavoursome side made of toor dal. The crisp Rontas when dunked into the thick dal, is simply divine!

On my recent visit to my parent's place, I asked my mother to make these for me. It was yum, as usual and I savored every bite :)

Rontas, made of rice flour and is not rolled out like we do pooris and rotis. There is a technique to do this. I haven't tried making this by myself! I wanted to document it and blog the recipe so as to help me as well as you all recreate this magic at home.

So, I asked mum if she would help me with the details and she willingly obliged. She patiently let me click pics as she made the Rontas. So here are some detailed step-wise pics of mum in action making and shaping rontas!

Enjoy the yumminess! :)

Makes: 8-10 Rontas

Ingredients

To Make Rontas

• Rice Flour - 1 cup
• Water (very warm) - 1 cup
• Oil - 1 tbsp
• Salt - to taste

To make Thoy

• Toor dal - 1 cup
• Green Chillies – 2, slit length wise.
• Dry Red Chillies - 2
• Hing | Asafoetida - a pinch
• Mustard - ½ tsp
• Cumin Seeds - ½ tsp
• Curry Leaves - few
• Coriander Leaves - to garnish
• Turmeric Powder - ¼ tsp
• Salt - to taste
• Oil - 1 tsp
• Water - as needed

Method

To Make Rontas:

Making the dough:

• Take the rice flour in a mixing bowl and add salt to it.
• Now, slowly add in the warm water to the flour little by little and initially mix with a spoon.
• Keep mixing and once the temperature is manageable, use your hands to bind the ingredients together.
• Add in the oil and firm a firm but not too hard a dough ball.
• Keep aside for about 5 minutes.

Shaping the Rontas:

• Take a roti rolling pan and another flat, strong vessel (maybe a cutting board). Cover both with plastic sheets and smear oil on their outer surfaces of the plastic sheet. This is to stop the rontas dough from sticking on to the rolling plate.
• Make small lemon sized dough balls out of the prepared dough.
• Place a lemon sized ball in the centre of the roti rolling pan and using the other plate, press to flatten the dough ball.
• Use your hands to further flatten it to ensure the flattened dough isn’t too thick.
• Repeat with the remaining dough balls.
• Heat oil in a frying pan and fry all the flattened rontas.
• Place them in a plate lined with tissue paper to absorb the excess oil. 
• Serve them hot with a generous helping of delicious thoy! :)

To Make Thoy:

• Pressure cook the toor dal until smooth and mushy. For extra spice, you can also add in the slit green chillies while pressure cooking. If you like it moderately spicy, you can add the green chillies later.
• Take a deep bottomed pan and add in a tsp of oil.
• Toss in the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, curry leaves and red chillies. Allow to splatter and then toss in the cooked toor dal, salt, turmeric powder and hing. You can add in slit green chillies now, if you haven’t added it while pressure cooking the dal.
• Add a little water to the dal and allow to simmer on medium flame for 5-7 minutes.
• Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve hot with hot rontas! :)