Aloo ke Paranthe for Lunch

Today is Labor Day and we had no plans to go anywhere, so I decided to feed the hubby some warm off the stove lunch. I made some aloo paranthas! I have tried and tried, exactly twice before to make the paranthas with the perfect consistency and have failed. So today, I took it upon me, once again to make paranthas with the perfect consistency. You know, the ones that don’t get all crusty and hard once they cool down.

So here’s what one needs for the perfect paranthas:
1) The perfect dough
2) The perfect rolled out parantha – this does not exactly have to be perfect
3) The perfect cooking / roasting of the parantha

To achieve the perfect dough I decided not to use any oil or ghee during the actual kneading part. In the past, I’ve added oil prior to kneading the dough and that seems to have been one of the reasons for my faulty past paranthas.

So, for the dough:
2 cups whole wheat flour (Today I ran out of whole wheat so I ended up using 1 cup whole wheat and 1 cup all purpose flour, maybe thats what worked)
some salt if you’d like, no more than a pinch or two
water to knead

Now, make the dough – duh. The final consistency should be a stretchy, spongy, soft dough. Finish the dough with a teaspoon of oil and give it one final kneading. Cover and set aside.

For the parantha filling:
5-6 small-medium boiled potatoes – mashed
diced onions – half a medium onion
finely chopped ginger – 3 tsp
finely chopped chillies – 4-5, more if you want spicy
finely chopped garlic 3 cloves
finely chopped fresh coriander – 1 tbsp
and for a change I added some finely chopped green onions too
Spices 1 1/2 tsp each of red chilli powder, coriander powder, garam masala, salt, and chat masala

Saute the onions in 2 tsp of oil until lightly browned. Add ginger, chillies, garlic, mashed potatoes, all the spices. Take off heat and mix well.

Roll a small piece of dough out. I used rice flour to make it roll smoothly. Once rolled out, add a spoonful of the potato filling and literally wrap the dough over like a little wanton. Press gently with your palm and roll the parantha out.

Roasting the parantha:
Place the parantha on a tava/griddle at medium heat. Let the bottom side cook thoroughly before flipping. Once flipped, add some butter on the cooked layer. Let the other side cook and as its cooking gently lift up to check. Slide some butter under and wait till completely cooked. Flip once and check, and again and check. Take off the tava/griddle and serve with your favorite chutneys.