English
No South Asian household is complete without the smell of freshly made rotis wafting throughout the home. Many would associate childhood comforts with the warm smell of their mothers’ and grandmothers’ homemade bread. Indians can trace the years of their lives with how many freshly puffed rotis landed on their plates.
The countless hours that women spend in the kitchen kneading dough, rolling rotis and baking them could be considered an act of love — but it comes at a price. Time and effort are also key ingredients in the craft of traditional roti-making, and they are two things that most modern South Asians just do not have a lot of these days.
From the college student who misses mom’s homemade food to the young mom whose days are a constant juggle between a fast-paced career and her family, time is more pressing than ever in South Asian households. No one should have to choose between making a home-cooked meal or checking off something from their to-do list.
Pranoti Nagarkar, a busy young professional, didn’t want to be forced with a choice. She wanted to create a solution to having both. The question was: How do you simulate the handmade taste and texture of a fresh, homemade roti without slaving in the kitchen for it? You create a robot to do it.
“With a demanding job, I often found that I did not have the energy to make [rotis],” Nagarkar said in a video for Rotimatic, the world’s first robot roti maker. “And that’s when I really missed my mom’s garam, garam ghar ki roti. When we set out to build Rotimatic, honestly speaking, it felt like an impossible feat. But the faith was always intact, and since then we’ve come a long way.”
Weighing in at 39-pounds and taking up about 16-cubic-inches, the Rotimatic is a countertop appliance just like any other — except it makes hot, puffed rotis from beginning to end.
There are three compartments inside the Rotimatic for flour, water and oil — all the basic ingredients for a perfect roti. You can choose any brand of whole wheat flour, and the Rotimatic’s built-in sensors do the rest of the work, adding the appropriate amount of water and oil to make dough. And because the perfect roti is usually dependent on how well it is rolled, with special attention given to its thickness, you will just have to trust that this roti robot is as talented as your mom’s.
Rotimatic uses a patented process, which Nagarkar claims is the secret behind perfectly made rotis. Instead of creating a large batch of dough, the machine makes one small, portioned ball at a time. You, however, have the freedom to choose the level of thickness and softness of the roti. Although the machine holds enough ingredients to make 20 rotis, you can set how many you want at any given time, so there is no waste.
Plug it in, press start, and watch Rotimatic churn out one roti per minute, hot and ready to eat.
How does it taste? As good as homemade, some say, almost to the point of disbelief.
“So, I like to think that I know a thing or two about cooking,” said founder of Asian Food Channel Hian Goh, in a user review video.
“And when I first saw this chapati, the first thing I did was break it and look at it…and I just realized that’s what’s amazing about a really good handmade chapati is that it’s crispy on the outside, but it’s soft on the inside, and it’s not undercooked — and that’s very hard to do. I mean that takes human judgment most of the time, right? And still practice. So, I was very impressed by the quality of the chapatis.”
The Rotimatic sells for $599, but according to the Zimplistic website, pre-orders shipping out in 2015 are “sold out.” Those interested can sign up for a mailing list to get updates when the product will be available again.
