Alu Paratha

 

The commonest stuffed paratha does not have any one-taste-fits all recipe.

There are hundreds of variations...boiled  potatoes, boiled and sauted potatoes,  variations in masala and condiments etc etc etc.

Thr reason of recording this variation of the stuffing is to save the recipe I came across in a reel and the tempting masala used. 

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Ingredients:

A. Stuffing / Pur

* 5 Potatoes medium and small mixed : 350 gm

* Chopped green chillies- 5 to 6 depending on heat tolerance. 

* Salt - 1/2 tsp. Next time will used Rock Salt. 

* Ajwain 1tsp

* Prepared Masala mix: 2 heaped tsp

(4 deseeded whole dry red chilies ;

Whole Jeera-1 tbsp

Whole dhone- 1 tbsp

Whole black pepper 1 tsp

Mouri 1 tsp

Dry roast above for 3-4 minutes or till the spices take on a golden hue . Cool and grind to a rough textured powder.

Dry roast a tbsp of kasuri Methi and crush and add to the above spice mix).

* finely chopped onion ..1 medium sized

* chopped coriander..a small bowl full

* chopped ginger 1 inch size

B. The Dough

* 300 gms wheat flour or Atta

* 15 gm/1 heaped tbsp of Besan 

* salt ..a pinch

* chili flakes from 2 whole red chili

* lukewarm water..approx 200-250 ml

* oil / ghee

Procedure:

1. Mix all ingredients under Dough except water. Then add water little at a time and knead a soft dough. Knead for 3-5 min to yield a soft, pliable smooth dough (around 540-550gm). Smear some oil or ghee , cover and let the dough rest for 15-20 minutes. 

2. Prepare the spice mix . Add the dry roasted and crushed kasuri Methi. 

3. Here the recipe said grate the boiled potatoes.  So instead of the usual mashing, grated the boiled/steamed potatoes.

4. Added chopped green chilies,  salt, ajwain, coriander leaves, spice mix, chopped onion,  chopped ginger. 

Next time will add some amchur powder too for some more tanginess. 

5. Mix, not mash, all the above with a fork. 

6. Going back to the dough, i divided the dough into equal balls (lechi in bengali)...each ball being 90-95gm. For smaller Parathas, 75 gm approx is also fine.

7. Roll out into around 4-5inch dia discs with a thicker centre and thinner edges.  Add the stuffing or pur ...abt 2 tbsp or a bit more. Ensure that the dough can be sealed well without the stuffing oozing out. Flatten the stuffed balls and roll them out to around 8-10inch dia parathas...sprinkling wheat flour as you go for smooth rolling. 

8.place a paratha on a hot  tawa...add oil / ghee/ , butter and fry both sides on low to medium heat.

Served with spiced curd and mango achar.

Masala Poorie / Puri

Chholar Dal or Chana Dal was already carried forward from Lunch. Hence the Puri with a twist!

Though we Bongs are partial towards 'Phulko Luchi'...Poories made of Maida, Covid restrictions and limited supplies prompted me to improvise with whatever was available.... and here goes the recipe of Masala Poorie

Ingredients as per my availability: can be tweaked around to suit taste and availability

Maida - about 1/2 cup

Ata (whole wheat flour) - 3 cups almost

Hing /Asafoetida - 1 tbsp

Chili flake - 1 tbsp

Ajwain - 1.5 tbsp

Salt

Sugar

Ghee- 1 heaped tbsp

Curd (because it was available)-a bowl approx

Warm water

Procedure :

Mix the dry ingredients.

Then mix the ghee followed by curd and warm water....knead

Roll into poories and fry....

I served with Chholar Dal...

Anything like Alu Dum, Chhole, Chutney will do....even just like that...warm puffed spicy poorie tastes awesome!

KORAISHUTIR KOCHURI

Koraishutir Kochuris  are an almost indispensable part of a Bong's Winter cuisine. The first glimpse bright green pea pods are irresistible....and the first thing that comes to mind is Koraishutir Kochuri, of course with Alur Dum or Chholar Dal.

Ingredients :

Shelled Peas 

Ginger - 1" piece

Green Chili

Asafoetida or Hing - a pinch

Cumin or Jeera

Fennel or Mouri powder - coarsely ground (after dry roasting)

Salt

Sugar

Ghee

Procedure :

Filling

Make a paste of Green Peas,Ginger (ginger can be added while cooking the paste too), Green Chili, a pinch of sugar and salt

Heat ghee in a kadhai. Temper with Jeera and Hing. 

Add the Green Paste followed by Ginger paste if not already added while blending

Turn it around in kadhai to cook or give 'paak' while ensuring the colour does not change to a dirty dull green. 

Add fennel powder and red chili(optional) and also roasted cumin powder.

Overcooking is sacrilege and so is overpowering the sweet taste of green peas.

Adjust salt and sugar. The taste is mildly sweet

The filling is ready

Dough:

1.For the maida dough, add a tablespoon of ghee as moyen. Now knead the maida into a soft dough.

2.Like in making puri/luchi, pinch of balls off the dough, roll them into smooth balls. Then make cavities in the centre and add a spoonful of the cooked green paste. Fold up the dough cup with the green paste mix in the centre and seal it and again roll into ball.

3.Now roll out the balls as you would in case of puri/luchi.

Koraishutir Kochuri with Alur Dum....

Dalia & Green Moong Daal Mixed Paratha

Parathas made of Broken wheat & Green Gram 

A simple, hassle free, super nutritious I'd downloaded from the net and make very often...but never blogge about. To ensure the recipe is safe and sound in my e-recipe book, in case my memory fails me or my laptop crashes, thought of noting it down....

The ratio of ingredients in the original recipe was Dalia : Sabut moong :Ata = 3/4:1/4:1 cups. And there was no onion in the recipe. 
The following are my measurements. 

Ingredients :
Broken wheat (dalia/lapsi) 1 cup
Green gram (sabut moong) 1/2 cup
Whole wheat flour (atta) 1 & 1/2 cup
Salt to taste
Ginger 2 inch piece
Finely chopped onion - 1
Fresh coriander leaves, chopped finely chopped - 1/2 cup
Green chilli, chopped finely chopped- depending on the heat tolerance
Oil 2-3 teaspoon

Procedure :
1. Clean dalia well.
2. Soak sabut moong for about an hour. Drain and set aside.
3. Pressure-cookd dalia and whole moong in 2 -2.5 cups of water until soft. I require 5-6 whistles if the moong is not soaked for long.  Cool and mash the mixture.

4. Combine wheat flour, salt and oil.
5. Mix wheat flour with cooked and mashed whole dalia and moong.
6. Add grated ginger, chopped onions, chopped coriander leaves and green chillies.

7. Add water, if required, a little at a time and knead into a soft and pliable dough.
8. Keep the dough covered with a moist cloth for 15 minutes.

9. Divide the dough into 12-13 equal portions. Form them into balls. Roll out each portion into thin five to six inch sized discs.
10. Brush a little oil on a hot non-stick griddle (tawa) and place the parantha on it and cook on medium heat for half a minute on each side. Reduce heat and cook further till both the sides are slightly browned.

Serve hot with dahi (or raita) and / chutney Achaar.

This recipe is off to 'My Legume Love Affair # 56' being hosted by Lisa. The event was started by Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook.

Gujju (Methi) Thepla in Bong kitchen

Taught by a Gujju friend, love these Theplas!

Love them with mirchi achaar (green chilli pickle), and sometimes plain, with my evening cuppa! Best part they taste yummy even when not so fresh..

Ingredients:

Ata (wheat flour) - 250 gm or 2 cups

Curd - 1 cup

Methi (fenugreek) leaves- 1/2 cup
White til (sesame seeds) - 1 tbsp

Ajwain (carom seeds) - 1 tsp

Green chilli paste

Dhania (Coriander) powder - 1 tbsp

Jeera (Cumin) powder - 1/2 tsp

Haldi (Turmeric powder) - 1/2 tsp

Red chilli powder - 1-2 tsp

Oil - 2 tsp

Salt to taste

Procedure :

1. Knead all the ingredients together till you get a soft dough

2. Divide the soft dough into about 12-14 balls as in chapatis.

3. Roll out similar to a chapati.

4. On a tawa, smear some oil and cook both sides of the thepla.

5. Serve hot.

But, I like theplas kept overnight too....

Dosa's cousin & a Dakshini Alu Dum

(Goala/Gola Ruti....Dokkhini Alur Dum Diye)

Goala/Gola (pronounced as in 'Goal' -'a') Ruti is a kind of instant Dosa or a Pancake sans the egg & the sweet taste.

In our home Goala ruti is a much made and much loved weekend breakfast / brunch. It's quick, can be had with a side dish, sauce or as it is. Any vegetable chopped fine (like carrot, cabbage, capsisum, etc etc) can add to its nutritive value.

Today to enhace it's south indian-ness, I paired it with an alu dum which had a Duxini touch to it!

So here goes the recipe :

Ingredients

For the Goala Ruti :

* Maida or All purpose Flour : Suji or Semolina in 1:1 ratio. I used 80gm each of Maida and suji which yielded around 9 Goala Rutis/Pancakes

* Milk - 2 - 3 cups

* Salt to taste

* Onions - finely chopped 1/2

* Carrot - Finely chopped 1.

* Coriander leaves - finely chopped

* Green chilies - chopped fine

* You can add ginger / garlic paste & sliced if you like....I DID NOT

* Water to add to the batter to make the consistency more liquid

For the Duxini Alu Dum:
* Potatoes - 8-10 or as many as you require

* Onions - 1 large size, quartered

* Tomatoes - 1 medium, diced

* Curry Patta - a bunch

* Urad Dal/Kolai Dal (White lentils) - 2 tsp

* Whole dry red chili - 1

* Mustard seeds/Shorshe - 1 tsp

* Ginger paste - 1/2 tsp

* Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp

* Sambhar Masala - 1/2 tsp

* Salt to taste

* Red chili powder - 1/2 tsp (+/- depending on heat tolerance)

Procedure

I first make the Alu Dum followed by the Goala Rutis

Duxini Alu Dum:

1. Boil the potatoes with their skin on. Afterward peel the skin off and cut each into 4 quarters.
2. In a wok, take oil and when hot, temper with whole dry red chili, mustard seeds, urad dal and curry leaves
3. Throw in the quartered onion and add a pinch of sugar. Fry till it turns pink and translucent.
4. Add the ginger paste followed by diced tomatoes.
5. Add the boiled and quartered potatoes.
6.Add the coriander powder, chili powder and salt
7. Toss them around to mix the masalas well.
8. Once the raw smell/taste of boiled potato is gone, sprinkle the sambhar masala

9. Mix around one more time...check for salt. Take the wok off the flame.
The Duxini Alu Dum is ready!

Goala Ruti :
1. Mix together the maida and suji in 1:1 ratio and pour milk to make a batter of dosa like
consistency. You can make the batter with ONLY milk or milk & water.
2. Add the chopped onions, grated carrot, finely chopped green chillies, chopped coriander leaves etc etc..
3. Add salt to taste.
4. Mix well.

5. Smear the non-stick tawa with 1/2 tsp of oil
6. With a hemispherical serving ladle, pour a glob of batter and spread it in a circle.

7. Fry one side on low flame. Flip it over and fry the other side.

8. Your Goala Ruti is ready to be savoured with the Alu Dum.

Pav Bhaji comes to the rescue!

Weekends, or for the less fortunate of the human species (like me!), ONLY SUNDAYs, are often, busier and more jam packed with things-to-do than the weekdays!

We (AD & I) usually practise a division of labour when it comes to weekend stocking up the larder...he goes shopping for meat, fish etc while I go vegetable shopping. No particular reason, except for the fact, that though I love fish to death, i abhor the squalor in a traditional fish market. From this (and only this) aspect, I prefer the sanitised environment of a supermarket.

I wish some enlightened enterpreneur comes up with a retail outlet which has the feel of an Indian Bazaar sans the squalor and the mess !!!! The fresh & bright greens, oranges, purples, the scented aroma of the herbs, the smell of earth, the buzz of life and livelihood, the banter and bargaining...I love it all! The supermarkets with their racks of frozen stuff, with the uniformity and the impersonalised & almost mechanised service, bore me to death (read my take on shopping here) !

I want the best of both worlds!

I know I sound greedy and demanding..but I am! I want everything!!!!!! I want the quality, the variety, the bargain and the personal touch...i am the customer and the customer is the KING (oops! QUEEN!!)

The GenNex Biyanis, Ambanis.....are you listening?????

Well, coming back to where I started.....this weekend we decided to give schedule & discipline a miss and be lazy! We skipped the weekly marketing....

Consequence ? weekend masti and midweek crisis!!
Barely wednesday and my refrigerator was frighteningly empty.....there was a bit of this and a bunch of that and the freezer was worse off...it was empty !!!!!

So yesterday on my way back from office, which is the time i plan what we would have for dinner, I stopped at the neighbourhood kiraana shop and picked up a few packets of Pav, having decided it had to be PAV BHAJI for dinner.

Ingredients :

1. Pav - 2 packets

2. Masalas :
a) Pav Bhaji Masala - approx 2 tsp

b) Haldi/Turmeric - approx 1 tsp
c) Kashmiri mirch - 1 tsp
d) Red chilli powder - as per taste

3. Butter - the more the better! I used around 2 tbsp for the bhaaji & 2-3 tbsp to saute the pav

4. Lemon wedges - I had only 2 ..

5. Onions - finely chopped -3

6. Coriander leaves - chopped. (Thank god for my little pot of Dhaniya in the backyard!)

7. Tomatoes - 3 small tomatoes chopped

8. Green chillies - finely chopped

9. Ginger paste - 1 tsp

10.Garlic - 1/2 tsp (optional)

11.Oil - 2 tablespoons

12.Vegetables - the more the merrier!

- I used :

a) Potatoes - 4 medium sized
b) Brinjal - 2 small

c) Cabbage - 1/2

d) Carrot - 3

e) Beans - a small bunch...around 5-6

f) Bottle gourd- 1 small 2 " piece

g) Peas - 1/2 bowl (I used frozen peas)

13. Salt

14. Sugar

Procedure
1. Boil in a pressure cooker vegetables given above in 12a-12f. Mash them with a masher and keep aside.

2. Thaw the frozen green peas in salted boiling water.

3. Heat Oil in a wok and add garlic paste and 1 chopped onion and a pinch of sugar for taste and colour (very typical Bengali!!). Fry till the onions turn light brown & translucent.

4. Add the ginger paste followed by tomatoes.

5. Mix all masalas given at 2a-2d and salt with some water into a paste and add this to the fried onion-tomato-ginger-garlic. Cook till you see the oil separate out.

6. Add the mashed vegetables (prepared as in Sl. 1). Cook well for 3-4 minutes

7. Add a blob of butter and garnish with coriander leaves and finely chopped green chillies.


8. When serving, sprinkle finely chopped raw onions and squeeze a wedge or two of lemon.

9. Slice the pavs horizontally and pan fry them in butter, on a tawa till they are crisp yet moist.

10. Serve the hot buttered pavs with the bhaaji garnished with coriander-chopped onion & a dash of lime!

Tiffin Time - Chicken Roll

As I mentioned, this is a simple, fast and easy to make Chicken Roll made for my daughter's School Tiffin.

The Chicken in this recipe can be replaced by mutton, fish, paneer, veggies...for that matter ANYTHING!

I used the chicken pieces from last night's chicken curry.

Ingredients

* 2-3 pieces of chicken taken out from chicken curry

* Onion chopped - 1/2

* Tomato chopped - 1/2 (I didnt use tomatoes)

* Green Chillies - chopped (I didnt use chillies)

* Lemon - 1 wedge

* Rock Salt - a pinch

* Aamchur powder/Chaat masala - a pinch (optional)

* Wheat flour to make rotis/chapatis

Procedure

1. Make two (or as many as you require) rotis and keep aside

2. Take two pieces of chicken, shred them

3. In a wok, take 1/2 tsp of oil and just saute the shredded chicken to remove excess moisture

4. Take the roti, spread the shredded & sauted chicken in a straight line along the centre of the roti

5. Throw in some chopped onion, chopped tomatoes, green chillies etc etc.

6. Squeeze some lemon juice and sprinkle the rock salt, Chaat masala/Aamchur powder

7. Roll it as you would a wrap and cover half the roll with a foil/butter paper.

The Chicken Roll is ready !!

CLICK! JUNE 2009 Entry for 'STACKS' - Luchi-Mangsho

(Fried Indian Flat Bread with Chicken Curry)

Sunday Dinner....what better way to end the lazy weekend and gear up for a Manic Monday, other than, a dinner of Luchi-Maangsho! Sinfully loaded with calories....but once in a while it does good to throw caution to the winds!! So Luchi Mangsho followed by Mishti Doi, it was, for our Sunday dinner....

No recipes for this simple dish....the pic is off to Jugalbandi's CLICK! June 2009 - STACK.

Palak Paratha

Indian Bread with Spinach filling

When the kitchen inventory on a Friday evening is dwindling, and the only ray of hope is some Palak, other than Potatoes, Onions, not much choice is there for dinner. Normally when such ocassion arises, we eat out or order for a takeaway...but the mood wasnt right for either.

So decided to prepare ONLY PARATHAS....Palak Parathas to be precise. To be had with a bowlful of homemade curd with a sprinkling of masalas!

So here goes the recipe for the Palak Paratha :

Ingredients
A. For the Dough:
* Ata / whole-wheat flour - 2 cups
* Salt - a pinch
* Water to knead

B. For the Palak/Spinach filliing:
* Jeera / Cumin seeds- 1 tsp
* Hing/Asafoetida - 1/2 tsp
* Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
* Black pepper powder - 1/2
* Salt to taste
* green Chillies - chopped finely (optional)
* Spinach - 12 small bunches ; washed and chopped finely

C. Others
* Oil - for frying the Palak filling & for frying the Parathas
* Ghee
* Ata for rolling the parathas

Procedure : In the sequence I made
DOUGH

1. For making the dough, mix flour, salt and water and knead well to make a soft dough.
2. Cover and keep aside for about 15 minutes till you prepare the Palak filling

FILLING
3. Heat oil in a wok. Add all ingredients at 'B' except the chopped Palak

4. Fry for 5-10 seconds on medium

5. Add the palak.

6. Increase the flame to high and stir the palak and keep frying for around 7-8 minutes or till the water has evaporated. Lower the heat and continue frying till the palak is a devoid of most of water. Take off the flame and cool it.

7. Divide the cooled Palak filling into 10 parts.

THE FINAL PRODUCT STUFFED PARATHA
8. Like in making roti/paratha, pinch of balls off the dough, roll them into smooth balls.

9.Roll them into small rotis, place the palak filling in the centre. Fold up the small roti with filling in centre into a bowl and finally seal it and again roll into ball. Repeat this with all the 10 balls.

10.Keep the stuffed balls for about 5 minutes and then start rolling the parathas

11. Take an iron tawa and heat it. Place each paratha on the tawa and turn it around. Smear some oil/ghee (I used oil) on each side by flipping the paratha

*When serving, smear each paratha with a small spoonful of hot ghee.

*I served the Parathas with homemade curd with a sprinkling of black salt, chilli flakes and roasted and ground Jeera powder

Note : I made 10 parathas using the above measurements and a small quantity of dough (for 1 and 1/2 rotis) was extra

This recipe is my entry to SWC-Cooking with Greens, an event hosted by Sowmya of Creative Saga. The logo of the event is....