How to make Aloo Paratha

Stuffed Aloo Parathas are an Indian recipe and probably one of the most popular Punjabi breakfast dishes around. Stuffed Parathas are essentially unleavened dough stuffed with a spicy mixture, which is rolled out and lightly fried on a griddle. These are then served with gobs of butter, yogurt and pickles. They are usually accompanied by hot, sweet milky tea. Parathas can be stuffed with potatos, cauliflour, cottage cheese (paneer), onions or just lightly mashed leftover vegetables, as long as they’re dry.

Here’s how you make Aloo Parathas:

Flour for the Parathas: Knead some wholegrain flour into a soft, workable mass. Adding a little salt to the flour before kneading would be a good idea.

Stuffing for your Aloo Parathas: Boil some potatoes, ensuring you quickly peel and mash, without letting them sit in the water too long. Makes them watery. Add some finely chopped onions, green chillies and fresh coriander (dhania). Season with red chilli powder, dried mango powder (amchur), salt, cumin seed (jeera) powder and coriander (dhania) powder. Season to your liking only ensuring the proportion of onions etc are such that the mixture isn’t too chunky.

Make your Aloo Parathas: If you don’t have a griddle, any pan will do. Taking a chunk of the dough, roll it out to about 5 inches in diameter. Place a dollop of the aloo filing in the centre and folding it from all sides, proceed to seal at the top. Coat it in some dry flour and roll out again, till it’s about half a centimeter thick, and round in shape. If you’re new to rolling parathas, any shape will do… it’ll still taste good. Ensuring your pan/griddle is hot and has a little oil in it, throw on the paratha and using a spoon or brush, spread a little oil on the visible surface of the paratha. After a couple of minutes, turn it over and brush a little oil on the visible portion of the aloo paratha again. The aloo paratha is done when both sides are brownish/golden and crisp.

Serve the aloo parathas with butter (white if possible, tastes delicious), pickles and yogurt.

Tips:

• Don’t worry if the potato (aloo) leaks out of the sides or is visible on the top of the dough (as in the picture below) while you’re rolling it. This happens and is quite alright to begin with.
• Make your spice mixture a little over the top, as the paratha dough will temper it down a bit
• While salting the stuffing, remember, you’ve added salt to the paratha dough too.
• If you’re using olive oil, don’t use the extra virgin variety as it’s flavor will overpower that of the paratha, unless of course, you like it that way.

- Sid

Note from Vinny: If you want to make sure your alu paratha does not break when you roll it out, make sure your dough is pliable and very very soft. The filling should roll out with the dough as one so no breaks occur in the dough. Filling that leaks out on rolling will only make your paratha soggy and unseemly.

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