The Steaming Pot - Easy vegetarian recipes from India

Chana dal paratha with dahi and achar – nothing else comes close for a filling, comforting Sunday brunch. Try it this weekend!

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Bottle gourd decks up in style in lauki paratha, balancing its natural simplicity with a host of heftier flavors. When grated and kneaded into dough, this unassuming gourd lends its feel and texture to the paratha without making its presence stand out.

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Do you use ajwain in your cooking? My long-standing ritual has been to include ajwain in parathas – I put in a few seeds while kneading the dough and let it work its magic in the finished flatbread. Nowadays I’m feeling an extra fondness for this thyme-like spice and am exploring more ways of incorporating it in my food. I’m happy to report on a few super-successful experiments – sahjan ajwaini is one of them.

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Grated white radish seasoned and stuffed in flat-bread, pan fried with ghee. Mooli paratha is a delicious wholesome meal, perfect for brunch.

There are two schools of thought on how the filling for mooli paratha should be prepared: the first camp sautés the grated radish before using it for stuffing, the second camp keeps it raw. This recipe gives you my preferred method – the raw.

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Here’s a way to sneak in some cabbage goodness into your meals, without cooking up a full-blown cabbage curry: make patta gobhi paratha / cabbage paratha. With a generous spiking of cabbage (patta gobhi in Hindi) and spices, this wholesome pan-fried flatbread is a satisfying meal on its own. With chutney or pickle on the side, cabbage paratha is just the thing for a weekend brunch or a lunchbox treat.

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Till about a decade back, a mention of sattu in conversation with a non-Bihari audience would be greeted with puzzled stares. Things have changed today. The world around is more health-conscious, and sattu has gained currency for its great nutritional benefits. Rich in minerals, proteins and fibre, low in glycemic index – sattu is a great addition to one’s diet.

The better-known style of consuming this miracle food is probably in the form of a cooling sattu drink, but my favorite way is as sattu paratha (also called “makuni” colloquially) – flatbread stuffed with a spiced sattu filling.

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