What do you like to stuff inside your parathas? This soya bean stuffing is a constant favorite of mine. The main ingredient in the stuffing is soya bean granules, quick and easy to prepare, with all the goodness of soya.
I’ve got myself a pack of organic red poha (flattened brown rice) this time and made this nice breakfast-time dish of kanda poha (flattened rice cooked with onions, potatoes and peanuts) with it. This style of cooking poha is popular in Maharashtra and Karnataka, where it goes by the name avalakki bath.
Other than Indian dishes using spinach (spinach toor dal, aloo palak, palak paneer), I love to cook pasta with spinach as its prime ingredient. Here’s a simple spinach cheese pasta recipe.
Chura bhuja mattar – popular snack from Bihar that pits the crunch of roasted chura against the tender butteriness of cooked peas (mattar), to fantastic effect.
What is chura, did you ask? Chura is the Bihari word for flattened rice, called chiwra elsewhere in north India. The better-known way of preparing chiwra is in its moistened form, as poha. Chura bhuja, in contrast, works on chiwra crisp and dry.
Have you had those triangle-shaped parathas with layers inside them and wondered how they got made? Wonder no more: in this post, I’ll show you how to make triangular parathas with step-by-step pictures.
The word "paratha" comes from the words parat (layer) and atta (flour). So parathas are literally layers of cooked flour.
They talk of "trial by fire" as a true test of character – instances of it abound in medieval Europe as much as Indian mythology.
While one may question the veracity of such a test with reference to people, it does throw up interesting results when applied to fruits and vegetables.
I’m referring to roasting.
Placing raw whole vegetables on an open flame and slow-cooking them brings out latent attributes that you wouldn’t even know existed. Roasted capsicum becomes juicy and sweet, shedding much of its pepperiness; tomatoes take on a delicious smoky note.
This tomato olive capsicum pasta – with its key ingredients roasted – has a lot of character. It has been through trial by fire, after all.
A plus of cooking only for yourself is the chance it gives you for daring experimentation. Do whatever. Relish it if it turns out brilliant, commit it to memory (and blog) for treating others in future. Shrug it off if it does not; it is only one that suffered through it.