Mingle it up

I love all kinds of vegetarian stuffed Parathas like aloo, gobi, paneer, mooli etc. Being Gujarati (from east India), our parathas are small & thin like our rotis or I should say smaller & thinner than the parathas made in North India. But I simply love those big & thick ones with lots of stuffing inside.
Actually in north India, Parathas are heavily (almost fried) cooked with ghee or butter which makes them extremely delicious but unhealthy too. But if you go skimpy on the fat, Parathas can be one of the very well-balanced & satisfying meal. You get goodness from whole-wheat, heavily stuffed with vegetables & some good-fat like canola oil.

I owe my stuffed paratha’s recipe to my good friend Bindu. She taught me different stuffings to put inside a paratha & they are delicious. And its so easy, you learn one recipe & it’s like you can make 5 different varieties from it.

So lets get started

General Stuffing Recipe

-1 cup finely grated vegetable

• Gobi (Cauliflower)
• Mooli
• Carrot
• Corn - grate fresh cob of corn
• Paneer
• Paneer+ finely grated cabbage - these are healthier than just paneer & taste delicious.
• Spinach - For Spinach Parathas, I use frozen chopped spinach; thawed & excess water removed after thawing.

-1/3 cup very finely chopped onions
-1 small finely chopped green chili
-1 tsp finely chopped ginger
-2 tbsp of finely chopped cilantro
-salt to taste
-1/4 tsp Chaat masala
-1/2 tsp cummin powder
-1/4 tsp chili powder (optional)
-1/4 tsp Aamchur powder (dry mango powder)

Steps

1. Make the regular Roti/Chapati Dough & rest it for 15-20 minutes.

2. Gobi/Mooli/Carrot/Paneer stuffing

Grate the vegetable, add onions & all the spices. Mix it well & adjust the seasoning as per your taste. You can add any other spice as well to suit your taste.

• But one additional step with Mooli Or Carrot stuffing is that after grating, add little salt & leave it for 5-10 minutes. This will help to ooze out excess water from the grated vegetable. Press the mixture to remove out all the water from the mixture. It will be very difficult to stuff the Parathas with this watery mixture & roll them out.
• Add onions & other spices after removing out the water.

3. Spinach Stuffing

Hi Friends,

I am back with great, healthy & quick snack item - sooji dhokla. In a gujarati household, Dhokla is a very common food item. Dhoklas are steamed & most commonly served as an appetizer or tea time snack. They are soft, fluffy in texture & awesome in taste. They are very filling & healthy as well.

My mom makes lots of different kinds of dhoklas like

-Mixed Dal (Yellow Mung Dal, split mung dal, Channa Dal) Dhokla
-Khaman (Besan - Chickpea flour) Dhokla
-Rice Dhokla
-Sooji Dhokla

Today we will go over on how to make Sooji Dhokla
Serves 2-3 people

1 Cup Sooji (Cream of wheat)
1/2 Yogurt + 1/2 cup water
2 tsp of oil
1 tsp salt (to taste)
1/2 tsp of sugar
1 tsp ginger/chili paste (to taste)
1 tsp of Eno Fruit Salt Or 1 tsp of baking soda
1 tsp of Lemon juice
few sprigs of cilantro for garnishing.
1/2 tsp ajwain / Carrom seeds (optional)

Oil Tempering

2 tsp of oil
1/4 tsp of mustard seeds
1 /4 tsp of sesame seeds
1 green chili (slit lengthwise)
3-4 curry leaves

Step up used to steam the dhoklas

If you already have a Dhokla stand with the plates, then you are already set. If don’t have one no need to worry you can still make these spongy goodness without any problem.
All you need is a
-container with a lid
-a round plate that has some depth to it that fits in the container above.
-a small stand that can give the round plate an elevated platform when placed inside the container.

1. Take the container & fill about 1 inch of water in it or the amount which is lesser than the height of the small stand.
2. Place the stand in the container filled with water.
3. Place the greased round plate filled with Dhokla batter on top of the stand. Such that it is little high above the water level. Make sure that water should not enter the dhokla batter. Water is used to steam the dhoklas.
4. Cover the container with the lid & leave very small room for steam to escape the vessel.
5. You can use Pressure cooker with its lid as a container but make sure not to put its whistle while steaming the dhoklas.