Having grown up in India on a diet of chappatis, rotis and parathas made with a high proportion of wholewheat flour and absolutely no artificial preservatives, none of the commercially available flat breads in the UK met our exacting requirements. Made of refined flour, they are either loaded with synthetics and preservatives like E22, E282 or Gum, or just too thick and chewey to do justice to our delicious mooli fillings, chutneys and salsas.
The skill and labour required to make rotis meant that making them manually in the UK was not viable. Then Sam came across Lupita, a Mexican machine used by the Cool Chile Company to make lovely corn tortillas at Taqueria, and we set out to find our own Moolita.
You will never pull it off, people warned us. But others like Jonathan told us to go for it. He left a quote by George Bernard Shaw on our blog… “the reasonable man adapts himself to fit the world, while the unreasonable man insists on adapting the world to fit himself. All progress depends upon the unreasonable man”.
The journey took us to BE&SCO in San Antonio, Texas, makers of the incredible wedge press machine. Sam managed to win entry to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas (sponsored by Bet365) and made a quick detour to Texas to check Moolita out! Confirmation of the machine’s prowess came from the BAPS Hindu temple (Neasden, London) currently the only other place in the UK to use these machines.
Moolita now resides at Mooli’s. And so, every morning Soho will wake up to the aroma of fresh Indian rotis being made at 50 Frith Street. Just bread. No E22. No E282. No Gum. Ever.
