Spicy Parathas with tomato, onion, garlic, ginger & coriander

Recently, I have noticed so many breads, biscuits, tortillas etc. all being sold on the market with various flavours. In fact everything seems to be flavoured starting from milk, bread, crisps etc. The flovoured tortilla  got me to thinking whether I should flavour the humble chappati  we eat nearly every day.  Now how does garlic flavoured chappatis sound to you?    In fact – I discussed quite a few flavours with my family but they all felt that the simple chappati should remain without flavours BUT they did not mind me experimenting with parathas!! And this is how my Spicy tomato, onion, garlic, ginger, green chillies paratha got created.  I did not want to use any artificial flavours to my parathas so I made them using natural ingredients.  This dish is also perfect to make when entertaining as you can par cook the parathas and fry them to serve hot to your guests.  I made these as an experiment for a friend of mine who was looking for quick and easy recipes to use for a "Come Dine With Me" event he was hosting.  Some of you may have seen "Come Dine with me" on  the television where 4 people host each other and cook dishes to impress each other and give marks for the food.   These parathas were a hit with my family and his guests too.  We also made a slightly different variety of parathas using green chutney and  I will post that recipe soon.


Ingredients for serving 4 people
Time 40-50 minutes

½ cup of passata or blended tomatoes
1 small piece of ginger
2 cloves of garlic
1 small onion
1-2 green chillies (use less if you don't want to make them too hot)
Small bunch of finely cut coriander
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon turmeric
2 tablespoons oil for the dough
3 cups of chappati flour to make the dough
½ cup flour for dusting the parathas when rolling them.
2 cups oil for frying (I use sunflower oil)

Method:

1. Add the onion, garlic, ginger and green chillies to the tomato mixture and grind it all in a blender.

2. Sieve the flour and add in the salt and turmeric and the coriander.  I didn't blend in the coriander with the passata as I wanted the porathas to have some green specks.

3. Add in the 2 tablespoons of oil and mix.

4. Using the tomato mixture, mix the dough. If you don’t have enough tomato mixture, you can use some warm water to finish off . The dough should be nice and pliable. Keep this covered for 20 minutes.

5.   Divide the dough into 10 or 12 equal balls.

6. You can either make your parathas, round or triangle.

7. To make an impression here are two styles I like to use:

• Roll out the paratha and brush some oil on one side and dust it with some flour.

• Roll down the paratha as shown below and twist it back into a circle and roll it out again.

•  The oil helps to separate the poratha into layers.

8.  Now you can just par cook it in a dry frying pan and finish off - by heating it with some oil brushed on both sides of the paratha - when your guests arrive.

9.   The second style is to make it in a triangle shape :

• Roll out the paratha and brush some oil on one side and dust it with some flour. 

• Fold it in half.

• Fold it in quarter

• Dust it with some flour.

• Roll it into a triangle paratha

10.  Like the round one, par cook it in a frying pan. 

11.  Brush some oil and heat it when ready to serve.

These parathas are spicy so they taste great on their own or with any curries or raita. 

The above recipe was also published in the City Connect website: http://www.city-connect.org/spicy-parathas/

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