Indian Pancake: Cheela/Chilla

"Cheela," also spelled "chilla," are a kind of pancake made from chickpea flour in India. While they are a common item for breakfast, they are also eaten at other times of day. Some Indians make them with varying amounts of grated or finely chopped vegetables cooked into the batter, like chopped tomato, coriander (cilantro), onion or garlic, and they make the pancakes a "little" thicker. Others make them thinner, like a crepe, and then they place veggies on top and roll them or fold them over, or they simply put butter or ghee (clarified butter) on them. I've chosen to just go somewhat straightforward here so you get the idea, but the overwhelming number of recipes I've seen have fresh chili pepper as an ingredient, but if you don't like "hot" foods, these don't have to be made to make you cringe from the heat, but you can seed the chili and just use perhaps 1/2 of it. These are very easy to make. I got four 7 inch diameter and thin pancakes from the recipe below.    

Ingredients:

1 cup chickpea flour
3/4 cup water (more if batter is too thick)
2 teaspoons turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
1 green chili, finely chopped (jalapeño or serrano, you can seed them, or leave the seeds for heat)
oil for frying

Mix together the flour, turmeric, salt and finely chopped green chili, then slowly stir in the water to form a batter. The batter should be fairly loose, but with a little body to it, like the consistency of heavy cream. Let the batter sit for about 15 minutes, then stir again. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add about a 1/4 teaspoon of oil to the skillet and swirl the oil in the skillet to coat the bottom of the pan. Put a ladle of batter into the heated skillet and smooth it out with the underside of the ladle. When the top of the pancake is set, sprinkle a little oil (about 1/4 teaspoon) around the edges and tilt the pan so that the oil runs down the outside edges of the pancakes. This will help the edges to crisp up somewhat. Flip the pancake and cook on the other side. The pancake should be lightly browned on both sides, but if there are some darker brown spots on it, that is certainly not against the rules. Serve the pancakes warm.

I just put some butter on the chillla I fixed, and I had a couple of tomato slices and some fresh coriander (cilantro)

WORD HISTORY: 
Anomaly-Part of this word is distantly related, through Indo European, to "same," a word from the Germanic roots of English, as well as to words beginning with "homo-," like "homogenize," "homonym," "homosexual," and others, with that prefix going back to Greek. "Anomaly" goes back to the Indo European root "sem," which had the notion of "one, together, united." This gave Indo European "samos/somos"), which meant "same." This gave Ancient Greek "homo(s)," which meant, "same." This produced "homolos," meaning, "even, level." Greek also had "an," meaning, "not, not having, without," from Indo European "ne," with the general meaning "not." This was then put together in Greek as "anomalos," literally, "not even;" thus also, "irregular." This produced the Greek noun "anomalia," meaning, "(an) inequality, (an) irregularity, an unevenness." This was borrowed by Latin as "anomalia," with the same meanings, and English borrowed the word in the second half of the 1500s, but it was in the second half of the 1600s that the word solidified in the general meaning still with us today, "an irregularity, a defect, something that breaks with common practice."