There’s a lot of spinach in my fridge, and I’m going to have to be very innovative to get rid of it before it goes bad, without getting sick of the taste.
So after having had my fill of Spinach fritters, I needed something slightly healthier.. Before I write down the recipe I would like to explain a little bit about Indian cooking utensils.
For the dish I’m writing about, you need a flat griddle; “Tava”. They’re usually made of iron or steel, but come in non stick variants as well. You can probably find one at an Indian food store near you, or Buy one on Amazon.co.uk.
Hara Parantha (Green flat bread)
3 cups Chapati Flour (finely ground whole wheat flour
2 generous handfulls fresh spinach leaves – finely chopped, shredded; or blended
water
oil for coating & frying - it’s easiest to put some into a small bowl.
Sift the flour into a bowl, add the spinach, mix it together. Add water little by little and combine everything to make it into a pliable dough. Because of the spinach, it will be a little sticky, but it should be of a similar consistency as bread dough. Keep kneading it on the kitchen worktop for at least 10 minutes.
Form the dough into balls, approx. the size of an apricot. Put some flour on the worktop to prevent sticking, and coat the ball in flour. Roll it out into a 2-3mm thick circle – make sure it doesn’t stick to the work surface, so keep sprinkling flour whenever necessary. Take a little bit of oil in a teaspoon, and spread it over the circle, in a straight line across the middle. Fold over one side of the circle, spread oil over the folded part, fold the other side of the circle. Then put a little bit of oil on the center, fold the top part over, then repeat and fold the bottom flap. Your parantha will be square now. Coat it in flour and roll it out again evenly until it is 3mm thick. See images below; how to make a square parantha:
Meanwhile heat the griddle on the stove, on medium heat. Put your parantha on the griddle and turn the heat down. Cook it until it turns darker – approx. 1-2 minutes. Turn it around and cook a for max. 1 minute until the other side is cooked and it starts to puff up a little bit. spread a little oil over the top and along the sides, turn the parantha around and spread a little oil over it again. Gently let it cook, until it’s done, but don’t make it crispy (unless you like it like that of course… )
Serve immediately with some pickle or as a side dish with some meat or vegetable curry.
odzer Said:
on October 8, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Oh these look very nice. Paranthas and with schematic diagrams as well. Very well explained I must say. I can almost taste these. You know you should also try some spinach kebabs those are very nice as well.
hedonist666 Said:
on October 8, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Well you see when I wrote the recipe down I realized if you haven’t seen it done before, the rolling instructions could be a bit confusing
Spinach kebabs indeed sound nice as well
but maybe next it will be your spinach potato salad…
Egg Parantha | odzer's blog Said:
on October 20, 2008 at 6:34 pm
[...] In fact if you want to learn how to make paranthas just head over to Hedonists blog which has an excellent post complete with schematic diagrams about how to shape [...]
A satisfying treat - Egg Parantha’s « Just life… Said:
on February 23, 2009 at 5:09 pm
[...] until you end up with a square shape. I explained and illustrated this process in a previous post; Spinach Mania – why does it have to come in such big packets? which outlines how to make Spinach or Hara (green) Parantha’s. The process is the same for [...]