But I Smile Anyway…

Much as I love a traditional English roast dinner, complete with golden, crispy roast potatoes, slices of lamb with mint sauce, and lashings of gravy, there is another Sunday meal that we Punjabi’s tend to try not to miss…

Aloo Parathas!

These are a lightly fried potato filled bread which we eat traditionally with plain set yoghurt and pickle.

There are so many variations, stuffing them with different vegetables like cauliflour (gobi parathas), minced meat (keema parathas) or even paneer (paneer parathas). One favourite of mine is to have a plain one with fried egg! It seems to be a bit if a Kenyan Indian things!

I thought I would share the simple recipe for these delicious treats! Again, as I have said before, it is really hard to give measurements as we Indians like to use andazaa, or approximations! If it looks right and tastes right, that is great… probably the reason why we can never cook for a few people but always have vats of curry on the boil!

You’ll need:

A rolling pin

A tava/frying pan

A fish slice

An insulated container to collect them in.

loose flour

chapatti dough, made from chapatti flour mixed with water to create a firm dough

potato mix – boil potatoes, and drain fully. Mash then mix in salt, pepper, cumin seeds, a little finely chopped onion, a little grated ginger, finely chopped green chilli and chopped fenugreek leaves (methi)

Butter (Butter Fry light spray if you want to be as Slimming World friendly as you can!)

Method

• Heat tava to a medium heat
• Take a ball of dough and roll it in your hands.

• Coat in a little loose flour then create a flat circular patty using your hands.

• Roll into a circle approximately the size of a side plate
• Take around a tablespoon of potato mix and place in centre

• Gently take each side of the dough and gather into a pouch.

• Flatten and cover with loose flour again.

• Carefully roll the larger patty out to the size of a dinner plate

• Slowly pick up and place on the tava

• Allow the paratha to cook gently until the dough appears to change colour.

• Using a fish slice carefully turn over to cook on other side.

• Once browned, turn over again and apply butter to the paratha
• Turn again and apply butter to other side
• Allow to sizzle for a few seconds and then place paratha in your insulated container
• Repeat from second step until you have as many parathas as you need

And Enjoy!

With Butter

With Frylight