Aloo Paratha (Stuffed Flatbread): HBinFive

Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old…

For some reason, that nursery rhyme pops into my head every time I think about this Aloo Paratha. I suppose it’s because it’s stuffed with a mixture of peas, potatoes and curry.  I even had my boyfriend singing the rhyme the other night while I was making it.  We were quite the pair.

This is another bread I almost didn’t make. It’s not that I didn’t want to. I had all the ingredients and I had even made the ghee, but I just wasn’t in the mood the night I planned to make it. However, I had invited my boyfriend over for dinner and he thought the Aloo Paratha sounded really good so I made it anyway.  I’m glad I did.  We both enjoyed it!

This version of Aloo Paratha is made using the Healthy Bread in Five Minutes 100% Whole Wheat Olive Oil Bread dough.

Making ghee (clarified butter)

Aloo Paratha uses ghee (instead of butter) which I thought might be hard to find until I learned how easy it is to make. Ghee is basically just clarified butter. To make it, just heat unsalted butter until it melts, bring it to a boil and cook until it is frothy.  Then cook it gently until the milk solids float to the bottom of the pan.  Strain it, cool completely, then put it in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it.  It will last for a month in the refrigerator. 

 

Making the Aloo Paratha

I had already weighed out the dough a couple of days earlier when I made the 100% whole wheat with olive oil bread so I just took out the remaining piece and formed it into a ball.

Then, I used my palms and the rolling pin to get the dough rolled out to about 1/8-inch thick.  I also put it on a greased piece of parchment so it would be easier to work with and transfer to the baking stone. 

Then I spread the mixture of mashed potatoes, curry, ghee, neutral-flavored oil and peas on one side.  I used frozen peas and didn’t even have to thaw them.  I thought it might make it too watery but it didn’t. I kind of spread it over more than half, but it was ok.

Then I brushed the outside edges with water and folded the other half over and sealed it by pinching it closed with my fingertips.

Then, I brushed the top with more ghee and sprinkled on more curry.

Using a serrated knife, I cut 3 slits in the top crust, all the way through the top layer of dough.

Then I slid it onto the baking stone (in the preheated oven) with the steam pan underneath.

 

And, baked it for about 35 minutes, until it was golden brown. 

Here it is.  I think it’s kind of neat with the mashed potato mixture peeping out from under the slits.

It turned out a little bit crunchy on the outside which I liked because if offset the soft inside.  My boyfriend and I were very pleased with this bread.  We really liked the flavor.  It was filling as well.  It wasn’t too filling, but we didn’t need anything else with it and we only ate half of it.

I really liked this version of Aloo Paratha.  It had a wonderful flavor.  However, I’ve never had this before so I would like to try an authentic version.  It just so happens that one of the other bakers in the HBinFive group is from India and she has a more traditional version of Aloo Paratha, on her blog My Diverse Kitchen.  I’ll have to try that one.  It sounds really good.

Thanks for joining us in the bread-baking blog.  Look for more breads from the Healthy Bread in Five Minutes Baking Group.

About the HBinFive Baking Group

The HBinFive Baking Group, started by Michelle of Big Black Dogs, is baking through all of the breads in the  Healthy Bread in Five Minutes book. For more information on the new HBinFive baking group, check out Michelle's blog.

 

 

Happy Baking!
Cathy

Whole Wheat Olive Oil Bread with Home-Milled Flour: HBinFive

For the March 1st Bread Braid, our mission was to make several different types of breads using the Healthy Bread in Five Minutes 100% Whole Wheat Olive Oil Dough: 1 loaf of 100% Whole Wheat Bread with Olive Oil; 1 loaf of Aloo Paratha; and Whole Wheat BBQ Pizza.

Due to my busy schedule the past couple of weeks, particularly with baking 27 breads for the STIR IT 28 Atlanta Event last weekend, I had to wait until the last minute to make the breads for the bread braid.  I’ll be honest, I almost blew this one off.  I was so exhausted at the beginning of the week, I didn’t want to think about bread much less make any for awhile. Plus, I kept doing stupid things like dropping a whole pan of taco meat on the floor while I was trying to put it away.  But, that’s a story for another day…

My bread-baking reprieve didn’t last very long – two days to be exact.  By Wednesday, I was having withdrawals.  So, I decided to make a half batch of the whole wheat with olive oil dough.

100% Whole Wheat Bread with Olive Oil
You can find the recipe here.



I’ve been doing some more research on home-milling and using different types of grains.  According to my new book (Flour Power: A Guide to Modern Home Grain Milling by Marietta F. Basey), hard red spring wheat has a higher protein content than hard red winter wheat due to the shorter growing cycle, but hard red winter wheat has a better flavor due to the longer growing season (they are both harvested in the summer) so I decided to use a mixture of both.

I used 1 cup of flour made from hard red winter wheat, 1 cup of flour made from hard red spring wheat and 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour I got from the farmer’s market.  I used more of the farmer’s market flour mainly because I didn’t have enough home-milled flour to make the 3 1/2 cups.  The flour from the farmer’s market didn’t specify the type of wheat (only that it was Kansas wheat), but I’m pretty sure it was red winter wheat. 


The home-milled whole wheat flour had also been sifted once to separate the bran and germ.  The resulting flour is called clear flour. Clear flour still retains some of the finer bran fiber from the outer endosperm of the wheat berry and is thus coarser and contains higher levels of ash.  We used this technique in the BBA Challenge for the Marbled Rye Bread. It is usually made from very high-protein wheat and is used for whole-grain and high-fiber breads.

I made up the dough and let it ferment on the counter for a few hours.  However, I didn’t put it in the refrigerator for the overnight retard.  The consistency of the dough looked, smelled and felt so good, I decided to go ahead and bake part of it.



I weighed out two portions.  Each piece weighed slightly under a pound, but it was close enough. I used one piece for this bread and saved the other one for the Aloo Paratha.

 

I shaped the dough into a ball and let it rest for a couple of minutes.  Then I shaped the ball into an elongated oval, placed it on parchment paper, and let the dough rest on the counter for about 90 minutes.  Right before baking, I made three slashes in the loaf using a serrated knife.




Then, I sprayed the loaf with water and sprinkled a mixture of seeds on top. After that, I sprayed the loaf with spray oil to try and keep all (some) of the seeds from falling off.



Then, I placed it on the baking stone with a steam pan underneath and baked it for about 30 minutes.  It had good oven spring.



Here is the finished loaf.



I really liked this bread.  It was very flavorful, not dense at all. It tasted really good as a PB&J.  As I’ve mentioned before, my test of whether a bread is good or not is if it tastes good with PB&J or at least with peanut butter. This one passed the test with flying colors.



I loved the flavor of this bread. It’s one of my favorites so far.  I think part of it is because of the flour I used.  It was fresh and had a wonderful flavor. All I know is that I’ll definitely be making this bread again and using this flour mixture.

Thanks for joining me in the bread-baking blog.  I’ll discuss the other two breads next time. Check out Michelle's blog on March 1st to see what everyone else baked with this dough.




About the HBinFive Baking Group
The HBinFive Baking Group, started by Michelle of Big Black Dogs, is baking through all of the breads in the  Healthy Bread in Five Minutes book. For more information on the new HBinFive baking group, check out Michelle's blog.





Happy Baking!
Cathy