Kebabs and Parathas

I've been craving idli. I even have an idli maker, which is about the scariest pressure cooker I've ever seen. My husband frowned and wondered if it was safe to be in the same room as it. I figure millions of people in India make idli in these things, so I can too.

But you'll have to wait for a photo of my idli maker. Idli is a South Indian specialty, and I hadn't thought about what other South Indian dishes I could make to go with it. So now that I've been an idli-tease, I'm going to switch to more northern dishes...

Menu:
- Chicken Kebabs marinated in spiced yogurt sauce (Curries & Bugles)
- Spinach cooked in a Bihari Style (Jaffrey)
- Parathas (Jaffrey)

Cookbooks:
Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East Vegetarian Cooking — the most amazing vegetarian book around.
Curries & Bugles, by Jennifer Brennan — recipes from the British Raj in India

Here's the meal pictured with mustard oil (for the spinach) and ghee (for the parathas), along with some chutneys that we didn't end up using tonight. (click on photo for larger image)

This is a time consuming menu. I prepped much of these dishes in advance, but when it comes right down to it, I still spent a good hour and a half between prep and cooking. I mixed the marinade and set the chicken marinating, prepped the paratha dough, and the spinach ingredients. Both the chicken and spinach cook quickly, but there's no getting around individually rolling out parathas and cooking them up (around 4 minutes each * 6 parathas for 24 minutes cooking time for the bread!). You could run two frying pans or griddles at the same time to cut down the time.

Results: kebabs, good! paratha, fabulous! (They always are.) The spinach got a thumbs up from my husband, but I didn't care for it that much.

Parathas
Every cookbook of Jaffrey's seems to have a different paratha recipe. I do a combination of two presented in the above cookbook.

2 Cups chappati flour (or substitue 1 C whole wheat and 1 C white)
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbl spoon ghee plus more for cooking (sometimes I mix ghee with vegetable oil)
3/4 C plus 1 tsp water

I use a bread machine to knead my dough, but if you don't have one, rub the ghee into the flour and salt then slowly add water and knead ten minutes. Let rest for 30 minutes and knead again.

Click on photo for a larger version.

Going from left to right, top to bottom, after making the dough, the cooking steps are:
Phone 1: Divide dough into six equal parts. (The photo shows one part ready to roll out.)
Photo 2: Roll it out and brush with melted ghee.
Photo 3: Roll it up.
Photo 4: Twist it up. This will make the paratha many-layered and nice and flakey.

Chill if you have the time. Flatten the twisted ball of dough and roll it out to 7-8 inches wide. Brush griddle with about a tsp of ghee. Cook about 2 minutes or until golden. Brush top with ghee and flip and cook other side.

Photo 5: paratha cooking on its second side

Comments

[Drink Recipes]

We eat this regularly. Though meat is optional, we either add chicken or fish every so often. But mainly stick to variety of green vegetables out there. Just as with the spinach you can use peas or bringals or many other vegetables. Her book should have a good deal of info.