Gobi Paratha - Perfectly sealed!

This is one very popular paratha recipe in our blogosphere. I've seen so many people blog about this wonderfully.

I thought maybe I should not blog about this just because its been done a lot. But, I've added a couple of things that might help someone while trying to make this. From my own experience, I've had instances where the gobi filling will squeeze out of the paratha while rolling. And then it becomes quite messy - even though it will taste great. I finally found a way to not make that happen and to get perfect round completely sealed parathas. Hopefully, someone will find this useful.

There are different ways of making the filling. You could chop cauliflower into fine pieces, add veggies and spices and use that. Or you could grate it finely and then use that. I chose to put my food processor (that I bought from Macy's on the biggest one day sale with extra 15% coupons) to good use.

So, let's get started.

First, add some chopped ginger and 2-3 green chillies, some jeera and give it all a quick pulse in the food processor.

Now, add the cauliflower pieces to this and pulse well. Make sure that there are no big pieces left.

 

You will need to get it to this consistency.

 

Now, add salt, red chilli powder, garam masala, turmeric, some chopped curry leaves, cumin and coriander powder and any other seasoning you like. Give the whole thing a quick pulse.

 

Here's the final filling. Now, just because we added salt to this, that brings out all the natural moisture of the cauliflower. Now, if we use this filling to stuff the parathas, the moisture in this will tear the parathas and the filling will ooze out. So, our next step will be to remove all this excecss moisture.

 

And to do that, move all of the filling to a thin muslin or cotton cloth, squeeze out all the water from it and collect the water. Do not throw the water. We will use this water later to make a side dish for the parathas.

 

See how much water there is in the filling. 

 

Now, for the parathas, mix atta with a little bit of turmeric, red chilli powder, cumin and coriander powder. Add just a pinch of salt - the filling also has salt. You don't want the whole thing to be too salty.

So, all set here to make the parathas. 

 

Make a thick roti and fill it up with the gobi mixture like this. The filling should be spread out to almost reach the edges. 

 

 Fold over on all sides.

 

Roll carefully into a round paratha. See - no holes, no oozing out.

Cook the parathas on a tawa on medium flame. Add ghee while cooking if you like for richer parathas. If not, take them out of the tawa when done and they apply just a dab of ghee on top.

 

Just to show the difference, I made the one on the left with the filling with moisture. And the one on the right is after we take out all the moisture. A world of difference, right?

 

Now, for a really quick side dish - chop up some onions and tomatoes - fry for a min and add this water and let it cook. This water already has salt and all the flavorings from the filling - so, you don't have to add anything else to this. This turned out so good - I wished I had made a whole batch of just this water!

 

Here are the Gobi parathas all done!

 

Serve hot with with pickles, dahi or raitha and of course my quick side dish.

 

Perfectly round Gobi Parathas with my own Backyard Oranges Pickle! Yummy!

 

Enjoy! Peace Out!