Monday, December 28, 2009

Day 4: Spicy sundried tomato paratha

DD2: amma I am hungry.
Me: give me a few minutes ...a I will be right there.
DD: are you blogging for your marathon?
Me: yes!
DD2: never mind I am not really that hungry. I can wait.
DD: amma do you want me to take the pictures?
Me: that would be great.
DH: Don't worry, I can get dinner for her.

This recipe marathon thing has now become a family affair. They get to taste some creative and usually tasty stuff over the holidays like this spicy sundried tomato paratha and I am happy. Win Win all around. Don't miss Nupur's excellent recap of the marathon every day over at One Hot Stove.





I am a sucker for spicy foods as you all know and pickles are way up there and there is absolutely no surprise that the sundried tomato thokku caught my eye. I have had this box of sun dried tomatoes sitting in my pantry for a while now bought for the express purpose of making pasta sauce but after a single usage lying listlessly. This thokku was the perfect way to finish them.

The thokku did not turn out well like thokku, it was grainy and looked more like bacon bits. The tomatoes were not getting mushy however long I blended, needed more moisture perhaps but they tasted just fine. I should have soaked the tomatoes longer probably over night. They would be used for flavoring what else pasta of course and stir fries too but not before they were used for something tasty and good.

Thus was born the speckled parathas with inspiration from those green flecked mint or coriander naans ordered in restaurants.



Holiday Reading
: Masala Dosai the national dish and Rasgolla the national dessert? and essays by C.Y Gopinath, Arun Jaitley, Ritu Dalmia, Monica Bhide and many more representing each state/cuisine on the recent issue of Outlook. Thanks dear bro for pointing them out. They are a great read indeed.




pinch out a small lemon sized dough and roll it out to about 4 inches in diameter


sprinkle the sun dried tomato mixture


fold and sprinkle some more



fold again



roll it out in the shape of a tear drop


transfer to a hot tava and cook on both sides




hot off the stove and off to One Hot Stove



Original sun dried tomato thokku recipe here.

Spicy sundried tomato paratha

For the sundried tomato mixture
Ingredients
1. 15 pieces of sun dried tomatoes
2. 5 red chilies
3. a small pinch of asfoetida
4. salt to taste
5. 1 tbsp sesame oil

Method
1. Soak the sun dried tomatoes and red chilies for about 20-30 minutes
2. Whirl them in a blender along with salt without addition of water. Let them be finely minced but not mushy (you will need mushy if you are making thokku)
3. Heat the oil in a pan and when hot add the asfoetida, add the blended mixture and cook for 15 minutes till you start to see oil leave the sides. Cool and set aside


For the Paratha
1. 2 Cups Wheat flour
2. salt as needed
3. 1 tbsp whey water
4. Water for kneading

Make dough like you would for chapatis or parathas. Add water a little by little to the wheat flour and knead to make a pliable dough, not too loose and not too tight.

Method
1. Take a small lemon sized ball of dough and shape it like a lemon.
2. With a rolling pin roll it to about 4 inches in diameter.
3. Sprinkle the sun dried tomato mixture on one half. Fold over to a half moon shape.
4. sprinkle some more and fold over to form a triangle.
5. Now roll it as thin or thick as needed.
6. On a hot tava cook on one side till brown spots appear, flip and cook on the other side.
7. Smear a bit of oil on the paratha if required, the oil from the sun dried mixture is enough.

Serve with a mild side like dal or just yogurt.

24 comments:

  1. Those parathas sound interesting!
    I happened on the Outlook issue quite by chance and am having fun reading it! Wish they did better justice to the Andhra food section, though, dismissed it in one line as 'seafood' and 'fiery' and the rest is all about Hyderabad! Bah!

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  2. It's great that your family are so involved :D And I love parathas - wouldn't have thought of sundried tomatoes, though, that's a nice idea.

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  3. Indo I am drooling. I had tasted an Andhra tomato pickle which would sundry the tomatoes first and then ground with other spices. The flavor is very different and I could match it with the tomato mixture in the recipe. I bet they would taste great with thick curds. Yeah, I could see the family's interest in the amrathon here ;)

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  4. Sra, exactly what I thought about Andhra and the Malayali writer was downright depressing. Wonder why Tamil food had to be an essay on Iyer food :( Some writers obviously did a better job than the others. I did not know that Arun Jaitley could write about food but he did a pretty good job actually methinks.

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  5. Wow you guys are on the run. That paratha sounds so interesting, now you make me hungry.
    I hardly cooked at all over the last 4 days :)
    Mom comes in a month's time and I am not even feeling guilty about feeding the kid trash ;-)

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  6. Sandeepa, lucky you. Exactly the same mode I would be in too.

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  7. How wonderful that the whole family is in on the fun -- spicy parathas look great! I liked the clever last line, too :)

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  8. Yummy! I added fresh tomato to my sun dried ones to make the thokku , and thats why they turned up mushy- spreadable. Grinding just soaked ones turn out to be dry :(
    But chunky is also good, they wont split when stuffing in parathas :)

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  9. Indo, I haven't read the whole thing yet. But this is a disease most people have when they discuss a State - discuss the most obvious and leave out the rest. So many times I've come across stereotypes - Andhra is Hyderabad, Tamil is vegetarian (Aaharam by Sabitha Radhakrishna does a good job of distinguishing between veg food of various communities), K'taka is Bisi BB, and Kerala seems to get a better deal. But I actually liked the piece on Kerala, and it was depressing because the writer was depressed and frank - for once, it wasn't a rah rah piece of good marketing.

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  10. Sra, you have a point and you are right. I guess most traditional cooking methods are fast disappearing and its time to grasp the fact which is what the writer was trying to do I guess. Truth == depressing but hard to accept.

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  11. That looks and sounds delicious, Indo!I have always adored Sun dried tomato paste on breads to pastas and I am sure I will fall in love with this!!Great idea!

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  12. Like them very much..can't wait to try..

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  13. Indo what a conincidence I also wanted to make sundried tomato paratha today. but its raining here and my tomatoes are half dry so made cookies instead. the paratha looks lovely just as I like.

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  14. Luz corner has so many shops for chaat. This kebab one I went to was in Dubai, sis lives there.

    But Indo sun god, for a Iyer like me (ok ok egg eating iyer), reading about my tomato thokku turning to bacon bits..I was about to sob :(
    Please do try it with one fresh tomato with the sun dried ones and let me know how it went :)

    May be you can still grind a tomato and add it to the dried ones and do the vathaking part again for the consistency.

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  15. Ruchika :) LOL. But it teaches me right when I don't read recipes correctly. I completely missed the fresh tomato in all my enthusiasm of using the sun dried tomatoes. The one I have now cannot be salvaged but they are almost over getting stuffed in parathas. I still have some sun dried tomatoes left for a second hopefully successful try. I love tomato thokku a lot to give up so easily.

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  16. Ruchika - Dubai you say? probably not any time soon :(

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  17. Aww- I teared up when I read the little conversation, how nice that everything is playing along with the marathon! That made my day.

    The paratha is very interesting! My own experience is that sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil are juicy and wonderful while the dry ones just never taste quite right. But you managed to use them well!

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  18. Dubai, may be you wont visit soon..How about coming down here to get some of the kebab n some more tasty goodies?..It is warm in here..Does not snow..No need to use a snow "mower"..Isnt that tempting enough :)

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  19. what an innovative recipe! I love how you said it went 'hot from the stove to one hot stove' :)

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  20. That must be so tangy & tasty. That's so sweet of ur family to be so supportive.

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  21. We are pretty much the same as well ... even the three-morsel-eater has been contributing in her own way to the posts :D
    That's such a nice little twist on using the thokku. I have a thing for sun-dried tomatoes, and this is totally brilliant, Indo!

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  22. Very different, yum & healthy too..... I think U used no oil..... so its good.....

    Happy Celebrations!!!!

    Ash....
    (http://asha-oceanichope.blogspot.com/)

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  23. feel like havin this right now,..

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  24. I really appreciate the small ones patience....God Bless....paratha sounds, looks new, interesting and yummy....love tot give it a try....

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