If you're Indian and you love paratha, there comes a point where you want to make it at home. The problem is that most recipes seem designed for a family of six, an enthusiastic auntie, and a freezer. I live alone. I don't always want a stack of twenty parathas sitting in my freezer waiting for a future version of me to remember they exist. So this recipe is intentionally small. Just enough filling and dough for two generously stuffed parathas.
The inspiration came from a restaurant that served the most gorgeous blue potato parathas. The potato itself peeked through the dough in little purple streaks and looked absolutely stunning. Blue potatoes aren't exactly a staple ingredient in my kitchen. But one day I wandered into Cold Storage and found a mixed bag of New Zealand potatoes. Hidden among the regular potatoes were a few blue ones. Naturally, they came home with me.
The result was a surprisingly successful experiment. The dough worked beautifully. The filling ratio was exactly what I wanted. The spice crust turned out far better than expected. The only thing I got wrong was the seasoning. I forgot the salt. And potatoes, as it turns out, are not shy about informing you when you've forgotten the salt.
So consider this the corrected version. The version where the potatoes finally get the seasoning they deserve.
There's also the dough. The onion-ginger-coriander paste adds so much moisture that the first time I made it, I'd already added the paste and thought, this feels fine, and then ten seconds later it was not fine. Sticky. Loose. Slightly tragic. The correct approach is to add the paste, then wait, then decide. It does not need extra water most of the time.
Ingredients
- — Potato Filling —
- 127g blue potatoes (or any waxy potato)
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp ghee
- ½ tsp finely grated fresh ginger, or ⅛–¼ tsp ginger powder
- Few grinds black pepper
- — Dough —
- 70–75g plain flour or atta
- ¼ small red onion (about 15g)
- ½ inch fresh ginger
- 1 tbsp coriander leaves
- Pinch Kashmiri chilli powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- Water, if needed
- — Spice Crust —
- 1 tsp coriander seeds
- ½ tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp black sesame seeds
- ½ tsp kasuri methi, lightly crushed
- Pinch chilli flakes
- Pinch coarse salt
- Few grinds black pepper
- — Tadka Dahi —
- 100g plain yogurt
- Pinch salt
- ¼ tsp garlic powder or ½ small garlic clove, finely grated
- 1 tsp ghee
- ½ dried chilli, broken into pieces
- ½ tsp cumin seeds
Method
- Wash the potatoes well. Boil them whole until tender. Drain and allow to steam dry for 1–2 minutes. Mash with a fork, keeping the skins on. While still warm, mix in the salt, ghee, ginger and black pepper. Allow to cool completely before stuffing.
- Blitz the onion, ginger and coriander into a smooth paste. Combine the flour, salt and Kashmiri chilli powder in a bowl. Add the onion paste and mix into a dough. Add water only if necessary — the paste contains a lot of moisture. Knead until smooth. Cover and rest for 20 minutes.
- Toast the coriander seeds, cumin seeds and black sesame seeds in a dry pan until fragrant. Allow to cool completely. Pulse briefly in an electric spice grinder — you want cracked texture, not a fine powder. Mix with the kasuri methi, chilli flakes, salt and black pepper.
- For the tadka dahi: mix the yogurt, salt and garlic. Heat the ghee, add the dried chilli and allow to infuse. Add the cumin seeds and cook until fragrant. Pour immediately over the yogurt.
- Divide the dough into 2 portions. Divide the potato filling into 2 portions. Roll each dough portion into a small disc. Place the filling in the centre, bring the edges together and seal. Flatten gently, then roll out slowly into a paratha.
- Heat a tawa or skillet over medium heat. Cook the first side until light golden spots appear. Flip. Brush lightly with ghee. Sprinkle generously with the spice crust and press gently so the spices adhere. Flip crust-side down. Cook until aromatic and crisp. Flip once more and finish cooking.
Blue potatoes are beautiful but optional.
Plain flour produces a softer, slightly chewier texture. Atta produces a more traditional paratha.
Don't overwork the dough.
Do not skip the salt in the potatoes. Seriously.
A mortar and pestle was tested for the spice crust. The black sesame seeds mostly laughed and rolled around. The electric grinder worked much better.
This recipe only exists because I accidentally found blue potatoes in a mixed bag at Cold Storage. If you can find blue potatoes, they're beautiful. If you can't, don't worry about it. Regular potatoes work perfectly. The blue potatoes create lovely streaks of colour through the dough, but they're not dramatically different in flavour.
The spice crust, on the other hand, is absolutely worth making. I originally thought it might be a gimmick. It wasn't. The kasuri methi, cracked coriander and toasted cumin add a layer of flavour that makes the whole thing feel far more interesting than a standard potato paratha.
The one thing that will catch you is the dough moisture. The paste has far more water than it looks like it does, and a 70g batch is very small. I ended up with something approaching paste the first time because I didn't wait to see what the onion mixture was doing before reaching for the water jug. Add the paste, knead, pause. It almost certainly doesn't need extra water.
The filling-to-dough ratio is intentionally generous, which gives you thin parathas with plenty of potato in every bite. The onion, ginger and coriander dough adds flavour directly into the bread rather than relying entirely on the filling.
The spice crust creates a second layer of texture and aroma, especially from the kasuri methi and cracked coriander seeds. And keeping the potato skins adds both colour and texture, particularly if you're lucky enough to find blue potatoes.
With tadka dahi. At the kitchen counter. Admiring the purple potato streaks and pretending I'd planned the whole thing.
Honestly, I'd probably hunt down more blue potatoes. Or maybe purple sweet potatoes just to see what happens. But mostly I'd just make the same recipe again. With the salt this time.
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