Ma's Aaloo Parathas

Difficulty Level : Medium

Time Required : 1 Hour +

Well, I need not stretch on the authenticity and the taste of this delicacy. It's directly from Mom, she made it yesterday morning for breakfast. It was one of those rare occasions when she kept taking out the hot parathas right from the pan and we ate, without keeping a track, could eat no more. So, here goes the recipe for mom's aaloo paratha (The recipe below would serve 4) :

Ingredients:

For the filling:

• Potatoes , medium - 4  , boiled and peeled
• Onion - 1 medium
• Garlic - 6-7 cloves
• Ginger - 1" piece
• Salt to taste
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp
• Cumin powder - 1/2 tsp
• Garam masala powder - 1/4 tsp
• Green chillis - 2 to 3
• Red chilli powder - 1/8 tsp (almost 2 pinches)
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil for frying the filling material.
• 1 tsp ghee or refine oil or butter for each of the parathas.
• 1 tbsp finely chopped coriander leaves

For the Dough: 

• 2 cups whole wheat flour  
• Enough water to kneed a soft dough

Method:

For preparing the filling, cut onion into small pieces. Mince the ginger and garlic . In a heavy bottom frying pan or wok, heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil. When hot, add the onion, ginger and garlic to it. Saute till the onion turns translucent. Then add the spices and green chilli (cut into fine pieces) to it. Cook for another 2-3 minutes, or, until the spices give a cooked aroma. Mash the boiled and peeled potatoes and add to the pan. Mix well with rest of the spices etc. Sprinkle salt as per taste and then mix everything well. Smooth out the filling mixture so that there are no lumps left into it. (If there are lumps left, when you will fill it in your parathas, they may split while rolling). Now, add the finely chopped coriander leaves to the filling mixture and mix well. Set it aside to cool while you work on the dough. For the dough, take the wheat flour and gradually add water to it, making a soft dough. Divide this dough into 12 equal portions. Take each portion between your palms and then roll it into a smooth ball (like you do to make any other chapati or flat Indian bread). Now, make a dip inside one  ball with your finger, add a teaspoon of the filling mixture inside it and then seal its mouth (like you do for any stuffed paratha). Dust with dry flour and roll out paratha using an Indian rolling pin. Now , heat a pan and put the paratha into it. Apply 1/2 tsp oil/ghee to both sides of the paratha and let it cook on the pan till its cooked (it would turn dusky in color with golden brown patches on it :) )

Make the rest of the parathas the same way. Serve them hot. 

Serving the potato stuffed parathas:

Potato stuffed parathas can be served with a verity of side dishes like curd, raita, kheer (rice pudding), sewai (vermicelli pudding), or chutneys like tomato chutney, green chutney, coriander chutney, pudina chutney,sweet mango or tamarind chutney, anchar (pickles), or any gravy reach vegetables like masala gobhi (cauliflower curry) or chole (chikpeas curry). Slowly I will add the recipes for these as well ,to the blog :)

Invariantions while roasting the parathas:

You can roast the potato stuffed parathas in more than one ways. You can either choose the way I described above, or, you can roast it dry , take it out of tawa/pan and then apply butter or ghee on top of it. Its a delight to see the butter melting on your hot paratha. This option of applying the ghee or butter on the parathas post preparing them makes them softer while with the previous procedure of applying oil to them while they are on the pan, you can make them crunchier if you want.

Finally, a snap of my mother's yummy aaloo parathas: