Potato Stuffed Paratha (Indian Bread)

I make this all the time, it so tasty and very filling. It's makes a great lunch or accompaniment to a curry.

The finished paratha!

You need:

• Chapati dough
• A few potatoes
• 1 small onion, chopped finely
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped finely
• Half a teaspoon of grated ginger
• 1 chilli (or as much as you think you can take)
• 1 teaspoon of garam masala
• ¼ – ½ teaspoon turmeric
• salt to taste
• Cilantro/coriander (optional)

Make the dough as you would do for chapatis. You can find instructions for this here.

Chop the potatoes in to small chunks and boil in salted water. When the potatoes are soft, drain them and mash. Try not to leave any lumps.

Add the onion, garlic, ginger, chilli, garam masala, turmeric and salt. Mix it all well.

Stuffing The Bread

There are two methods for stuffing the bread. The method I use most often is this. Roll a golf ball size (or maybe slightly bigger) portion of the dough in to a round disc shape. 

As you can see, I'm not very good at making them perfectly circular!

Put a spoonful or so of the potato mixture in to the middle and spread it out, leaving an inch or two of space before the edge of the dough. Bring the sides in to the middle until the potato is completely enclosed. Now roll out the bread very gently to make it in to a flat shape.

The other method is to roll out two discs of dough, then add a spoonful of the mixture to the middle of one, spread it out and then lay the other disc on top. Seal the edges my pressing down with your thumb.

Cooking The Paratha

To cook the bread, you can either dry fry them or put them in under the grill. If you fry them use a very hot pan. After you have turned it over the first time, add a little oil and spread across the top evenly. Then turn the bread over again and repeat for this side. 

Keep turning the bread every 40 seconds to a minute, depending on how quickly it is cooking, until both sides are brown and crispy.

For the grill method, just pre-heat the grill on a high heat, as well as the tray you are going to cook the bread on. When it is hot, put the bread on the tray and put under the grill. Turn the bread over when it is going dark brown on top. It is ready when both sides are brown and crispy.

Don't worry too much of you get spots of black bits when cooking, this is hard to avoid but doesn't taste that bad at all.

Variations

• The recipe for this is quite loose, you can use just potato and garam masala or you can add as many other things as you like. 
• I like to use coriander as it give a lovely fresh taste. 
• You can also leave out the chilli or add more if you like. 
• Be aware though that you probably need a bit more than you think you will as the bread will take some of the heat away and you won't actually be eating that much with each mouthful.