One page Cookbooks

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When my 6 year old nephew K insisted he’ll have nothing but pizza for dinner, and I had no pizza dough ready, I just topped a parota with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and baked it. He loved it, though he later casually remarked that he  liked the Indian pizza that I made ( you can’t fool kids !) . I was surprised to see the same offered in Hotel Chendur on Greams road. Actually, paratha pizzas are easier to make and infinitely variable. With hundreds of parathas being cooked across India, a paratha pizza makes great sense. It could be a nice fusion food, with mozzarella cheese alone being a ‘novel’ addition. 

What is pizza anyway ? A flatbread topped with cheese, sauce, toppings  and baked. A variety of flatbreads can be used as a pizza base. All these are leavened ( using yeast / baking powder), because a thick unleavened bread  will be tough and chewy . Parathas are not leavened – traditional Indian cuisine uses neither yeast nor baking powder. Instaed it invented its own technique to make a thick bread edible – by layering it like a puff pastry or by stuffing it with a variety of goodies. This unique invention led to an array of thick but soft flatbreads – the parathas. 

So instead of using a leavened flatbread as a pizza base, we here use a range of parathas. These are quicker to make, infinitely variable and are familiar to Indians. And they do taste bloody delicious. 

The change I’ve made in the recipe is not to use oil while cooking the parathas so that they remain dry and not oily.

Perfect for this cold weather, warm and cozy and fits in perfectly with Pallavi’s Sunday Snacks event. It also fits in well with Sindhura’s Bread Mania event.

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Stuffed parathas :
Anything that can be shaped into a tight ball can be used to stuff a paratha. Anything wet and soggy will not make a good stuffing. This is why Paneer/ boiled potato / boiled dal/ boiled green peas make easy stuffings, but  grated radish / cauliflower take quite a bit of practice. For many vegetables, the juice needs to be squeezed out of the grated vegetable completely before using them as stuffing. Avoid mixing salt with such veggies as salt draws the water out, making them soggy. 

Pizza:
A pizza is just a flatbread topped with cheese, sauce, toppings and baked. Now we have a variety of breads used as a pizza base. All these are leavened ( using yeast / baking powder), because a thick bread will be tough and chewy without leavening. Parathas are not leavened – Traditional Indian cuisine uses neither yeast nor baking powder. Instead it invented its own technique to make a thick bread edible – by stuffing it with a variety of goodies. This unique invention led to an array of thick flatbreads – the stuffed parathas. 

The Paratha Pizza
So instead of using a leavened flatbread as a pizza base, we here use a range of stuffed parathas. These are softer and can be stuffed with virtually anything. 

The change I’ve made in the recipe is not to use oil while cooking the parathas so that they remain dry.

And that’s my entry to Trupti’s Winter Treats.