Parathas have always been my favorite from childhood. Whenever I visit my North Indian friends, I always wonder at their soft fluffy parathas. I remember mom used to prepare parathas only when she had a luxury of time. Though I and my brothers are ardent lovers of parathas, granddad used to say “Big No” for parathas as they are hard to chew and never felt good in the tummy. Moreover, mom used to take counts of chapattis that she had to prepare; so you should understand the intensity of your hunger packs and let her know the exact count. When mom starts rolling dough for parathas, I know I could eat a horse. It’s been ritual in my home to prepare south Indian style vegetable kurma for chapattis. My love for parathas made me look out for new variations in preparing them. I found that stuffed chapatti serves as a wholesome food with vegetables loaded with spices. That’s how I stumble upon this cabbage paratha while surfing and here it is
Ingredients:
For the dough
- Whole wheat flour – 2 cups
- Water – 2 cups (adjust as per requirement)
- Salt – ¼ teaspoon
For the stuffing
- Cabbage shredded – ½ cup
- Cooking oil – 1 tablespoon
- Carom seeds/ajwain seeds – ½ teaspoon
- Green chilies chopped finely – 3
- Ginger finely chopped – ¼ teaspoon
- Turmeric powder – ¼ teaspoon
- Chili powder – ½ teaspoon
- Coriander powder – ½ teaspoon
- Cumin powder – ½ teaspoon
- Garam Masala powder – ½ teaspoon
- Amchur Powder – ¼ teaspoon
- Salt – ½ teaspoon
Method:
For preparing dough:
- In a large bowl, add whole wheat flour, salt and mix together. Add water little by a little while kneading dough.
- The addition of water is most important. Adding less water to the dough will make the parathas harder. Add water and knead the dough.
- The dough should neither be dry nor sticky.
- Leave the dough to rest for 20 – 30 minutes.
For the stuffing
- Peel the outer skin of cabbage and shred them finely. Blanch the shred cabbage in hot water for about 5 minutes.
- Drain the excess water and keep aside
- In a non-stick pan, heat oil over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add carom seeds. Once it splutters, add green chilies followed by minced ginger.
- Add shred cabbage to the mixture in the pan. Season with salt.
- Cook covered for about 2 minutes.
- Add all the spice powders in the mentioned order and cook until the raw smell goes off.
- Cook with lid covered until the cabbage is cooked well and becomes tender.
- Add additional salt if required.
Stuffing the parathas.
- Pinch a lemon sized ball from the dough. Dust with dry wheat flour if the dough is sticky.
- You can apply oil to your hand to avoid stickiness.
- Roll them to medium sized rounds using the roll pin. Make sure the center of the rolled parathas should be thick
- Place a spoon of cabbage stuffing on the center of the parathas. Bring the corners of the parathas to the center and make a potli.
- Flattened the potli with the roll pin. Reverse the parathas and start rolling the parathas.
- Be gentle while rolling as more pressure on the parathas may cause the stuffing to pop out of the dough.
- Dust dry wheat flour if needed.
- Cooking Parathas
- Heat a non-stick tawa on the stove top.
- Drizzle oil on the tawa. Place the rolled parathas on tawa.
- Brush the top side of the parathas with oil. Reverse the paratha after 2 seconds and brush oil on the other side.
- If the dough is at the right consistency, you could see the parathas raising on the tawa.
- Remove the parathas from the tawa once both the sides are cooked well.
- The parathas can be consumed as such. But it tastes awesome with pickle and a cup of curd.
