Carrot-potato parathas 🙂
You know how to make these, don’t you?
Boil and mash potatoes and carrots, add chopped coriander, salt, a pinch of turmeric powder, amchur powder, fresh ginger or ginger powder and make into balls. Put each ball in the centre of a little rolled-out dough, fold in, and roll it out into a paratha. Cook on both sides.
A huge welcome to you! !! I’ve been very irregular here but for once I do have valid reasons for this hiatus!!!
You know I’ve been bombarding you with some really interesting info on the Community Radio project that I’ve been supporting. I hope you took a couple of minutes to read about how radio can be a wonderful instrument of change. I will not deviate from today’s post which is a lovely recipe from the very talented Shubha Shashikanth. My little prince had been asking for spaghetti with veggie balls for some time. It looked complicated so I avoided it until Shubha posted her recipe on facebook. Made it this afternoon and it was absolutely brilliant. Do try it.
Ok, my version of Shubha’s recipe:
1) Spaghetti: As always, Boil lots of water, add a pinch of salt, throw in the spaghetti and cook until semi-soft. Don’t let it get squishy please! Drain the water and keep this aside.
2) The yummiest veggie balls EVER: I grated 1/2 carrot, 1 potato, 1/5 cabbage, about 100 gms paneer and added salt and white pepper. Add breadcrumbs. I didn’t have any, so I added a spoon of ‘sage and onion stuffing’. Added about a tablespoon each of rice flour and whole wheat flour. Make lemon sized balls from these and deep-fry in hot oil.
3) Sauce: Ideally, I would have fried onion, ginger, garlic, tomato and spices to make the sauce. But it was a busy day, so I used ready-made Bolognese sauce. And it was yum!!!
Tada!! This dish doesn’t take more than 20 minutes if your sauce is ready. Do try, do try. It was a huuuuuge hit at my place, especially because we are vegetarians. We loooooved it.
…..Egg parathas!
For eggetarians, this is a delicious one-dish meal. And for harassed Mommies and Daddies of fussy eaters, this is an outright boon!!!
Ok folks, I can proudly say I have come a long way from the days of trying to master the art of making chapatis.
All you need:
(a) Chapati dough (b) Beat together: 1 egg, a pinch of salt (add pepper, if you like), some chopped coriander
Step 1– Roll dough into circle, spread few drops of oil, fold into half, spread another drop of oil, fold again to make it a triangle. Roll out into a bigger triangle, taking care to not smash the layers into each other 😉
Step 2– Pop this onto the Tava (griddle/pan), cook for a few seconds on one side, turn over the chapati and cook for a few more seconds on the other side. Don’t let it turn brown, just cook it very very little, so that the layers are ready to peel away from each other.
Step 3– Take the semi-cooked chapati off the Tava, and gently peel the layers, without tearing them apart! Use a spoon (not a knife, please)
Step 4– Now place the chapati back onto the tava, and spoon half the egg mixture into the triangle. The cheeky mixture will try to leak (outside the chapati), but ‘you’ can be smarter and do a little acrobatics with the Tava. 
Tilt it a little, to help the mixture run back inside the chapati. Yeah yeah, you can also cheat a little, and scrape any mixture off the tava and spoon it right back into the chapati!
Step 5– Give this a couple of minutes to cook well on both sides, and ensure the egg is also fully cooked inside! The chapati turns into a yummy filling paratha.
Step 6- Actually, there’s no step 6. All you have to do, is E.A.T 🙂 
You could dip this in ketchup or a salsa dip to make it tastier. The only real drawback is, you have got to eat this hot, not cold.
EDITED TO ADD:-
I guess the shape and technique seem a little daunting. It really is quite easy, once you practise making the parathas a couple of times. For those who don’t wish to try, there is a really easy way.
Roll the dough into a regular chapati, make it really thin though.
Cook the chapati slightly on one side, then turn to the other. Turn back the slightly cooked side now, and spoon in the egg mixture. Now fold the chapati from both sides, and also slightly seal the top and bottom so that the egg remains inside.
Leave this to cook on medium heat for a couple of minutes until the egg is fully cooked. You could turn this over and let it cook for a minute longer.
Enjoy!!!
I hate cooking. Period.
Therefore, if at all I try a recipe, it just HAS to be something really quick and easy. So is this recipe for Friday Feast… Palak (paneer or aloo, whatever!)
Step 1 – Very very very roughly -Chop palak (spinach), onion and tomato (separately)
Step 2 – Cook these individually (i.e. palak in one pan, and onion/tomato – together with a little ginger-garlic paste in another) on a medium-high flame for about 5-7 mins.
Leave it to cool.
Do whatever you like for 15-20 mins. Check your Facebook status, Leave some spam comments on other peoples’ blogs, Tweet if you like… just enjoy.
When you are back:
Step 3 – Grind onion/tomato mixture first. Heat a teaspoon of oil in pan, throw in some jeera, a bay leaf and the ground mixture. Grind the palak, add that too.
Step 4 – Add all the powders you have in your kitchen – salt, chilli, haldi, dhani, jeera, garam masala – just whatever you like, really 😉 Don’t bother too much about quantities and proportions. You like it salty, add more salt. Like it spicy, add extra chilli or pepper powder. Its YOUR recipe, so cook it the way you want to!!
Let it simmer for 3-4 mins.
Step 5– Optional – Add either soft paneer, fried paneer (yummyyyyy ;-)) or boiled potato. I chose boiled potato simply because it wasn’t as fattening as paneer!
And the best part, eat this with roti or some really yummy aloo paratha.
That utterly drooolicious paratha, btw, is the easiest thing ever! Gets done in less than a minute!!! All you have to do, is dial lunchbrunch.co.uk and order it home 😉 (Thanks, Kanagu, for that awesome tip ;-))
This post is for the sweet-lovers 🙂 And this is seriously simple. If I can make it, then ANYBODY can!!
What to keep ready:
– 1 cup cashews
– 1/2 cup sugar
– 1/4 cup water
(That’s it!! Can you believe it?!! :shock:)
How to make this thingy:
– Grind the sugar (10 secs or so, to turn it into a fine powder)
– Boil the water, add the sugar, let it simmer a while (5 mins or under)
– Grind the cashews (ditto), add to the simmering sugar syrup thing
– Let it thicken, no lumps, until the mixture turns dry 🙄 Don’t let it get burnt though.
How to test if its ready: In about 6 – 8 mins or so, if you take out a drop (don’t you DARE touch it by hand, or you won’t forget me or this blog in a long long time!!) of the mixture and leave it outside, it should ideally become hard. That means your mixture is ready.
– Pour it onto butter paper and wait till it cools a little (5-10 mins). Trust me, you don’t want to even touch it at this temperature!! 🙄
– Knead it well into a ball (for about 2 mins) – roll out into a circle (I kneaded it using butter paper, as the mixture was way too hot for me to handle, and I couldn’t wait that long for it to cool 😉 )
– Once fully cooled, cut into diamonds 🙂 That is my favourite part 🙂 I remember my Paati making Beda (Jeera Para) this way. Its very therapeutic, actually!!
FINITO 🙂
End to end, this should take less than half hour or so. Not bad, huh?
Writer-z-block 