A Taste of Home – Spinach Parantha

Tags

Breads, Cooking, Flour, Indian, Parantha, Spinach

If you are Indian, you know what I mean when I say Parantha. I’m talking about the flat-bread (or naan), usually stuffed, made from wheat flour and cooked on a griddle. I’ve grown up having these for school lunch, for elaborate Sunday brunches, for evening snacks, or just about anytime hunger struck. And I loved the way my mother would make it extra crisp by frying it a little using a layer of ghee and then crumble it so that the ghee would seep into it completely. Ahhh ghee! Anyhoo, I’m so excited I actually found an article on Wiki about Parantha! All newbies to the term can read about it here.

So now that everyone is educated about this food item, let’s get started. I have made paranthas stuffed with potatoes before, but this time I had some spinach lying around so that was the ingredient of choice.

I never really thought about the “recipe” for these since we just assumed that everybody would know how to make these. But since that isn’t true, here is one version you can try.

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What you need:

Wheat Flour – 2 cups
Spinach, coarsely chopped – 1 bunch (about 200 gms)
Coriander powder – 1 tsp
Cumin powder – 1 tsp
Red chilli powder – 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp
Green chillies or Jalapeno pepper, finely chopped – 1
Garlic paste – 1 tsp
Salt – To taste
Water – To make the dough
Ghee {clarified butter very popular in South Asian cuisine} – For layering and frying

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The Method:

Wash and drain the spinach. Blend it in a food processor to make a rough puree.

Add this to the dough along with all the spices, green chillies and garlic. Add enough water to make a dough and knead thoroughly. At this time, it should almost resemble pizza dough. 

Take some dough and make it into about a 2 inch diameter ball with your palms. Using a rolling pin, roll this out into a flat parantha.

**A great tip to make lachha parantha (basically with multiple layers of ghee inside to make it soft inside). Once you’ve rolled out the dough into a flat circle, apply a layer of ghee all over it. Make a slit from the center to the circumference, and start rolling along one side till you have the whole thing rolled into a flower.

Place your palms on the top and bottom tip of this flower, and press together. Roll it flat once again and cook thoroughly on the griddle!

Cook the paratha on both sides till it is cooked. Apply a thin layer of ghee on both sides while cooking to make it extra crisp.

Enjoy with yogurt and your favorite pickle!

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Happy cooking!