Dal Paratha: Flatbread with Chana Dal Stuffing

Chana dal paratha with dahi and achar – nothing else comes close for a filling, comforting Sunday brunch. Try it this weekend!

All you need is some pre-planning: put chana dal to soak overnight if you plan to make it the next morning.

You Need:

For the stuffing:

• Chana dal – 1 cup [buy here]
• Ginger – 1-inch stick, finely chopped
• Garlic – 4 fat cloves, finely chopped
• Carom seeds (ajwain) – 1 teaspoon [buy here]
• Dry mango powder (amchoor) – 1/2 teaspoon [buy here]
• Green chilies – 2, finely chopped
• Salt – to taste

For the dough:

• Atta (whole wheat flour) – 1 cup
• Water – for kneading
• Salt – to taste

For cooking:

• Ghee – 1 teaspoon per paratha

How To Make Dal Paratha:

1. Boil the dal

Wash chana dal well and soak it overnight (or for ~6 hours) in three cups of water.

Drain and rinse well.

Place the soaked dal in a pressure cooker in two cups of water. Lock the lid and cook on high heat till one whistle. Switch off the heat and let the pressure reduce naturally till the lid comes off with ease.

The dal should be cooked enough to get mashed, but not so much to dissolve into water.

Strain to separate the water from the boiled dal. Don’t throw this water away – use it for kneading the dough in the next step or for thinning out curries/soup.

Let the boiled, strained chana dal rest in the strainer for 15-20mins as it cools down.

2. Prepare the stuffing

After the dal has cooled enough to handle, give it a final squeeze to push out any residual water. You can now mash/crumble the boiled dal to form the base of the stuffing.

To the mashed dal, add the seasonings: finely chopped ginger, garlic and green chilies, carom seeds, amchoor powder, salt to taste.

Mash together well. Chana dal stuffing is ready to be filled into the parathas. Set aside till you prepare the dough.

3. Prepare the dough

Sprinkle a pinch of salt over dry wheat flour (atta). Sift it together to mix. Knead the atta as you would for chapatis.

[Note: Steps 1,2 and 3 need not be sequential. You could prepare the dough while the dal boils, though in that case you wouldn’t be able to use the dal water for kneading the dough.]

4. Fill them up

Make equal-sized elliptical balls of the dough, about 3-cms in diameter. Flatten each dough ball between your palms, make a little crater using your hands and stuff a tablespoon of dal into it.

Pull up the ends of the dough gently and pinch the “mouth” close, taking care not to (i) tear holes into the dough (ii) stretch unevenly.

The dough ball must now look modak-shaped; press and mould to make it elliptical back again.

Repeat till you are through with all the dough.

5. Roll and cook

For each paratha:

Flatten a stuffed dough ball, smear it with dry atta to prevent sticking while rolling. Roll it out on a flat surface using a rolling pin. Use more dry atta to dust the surface in case the dough begins to stick after rolling half-way.

Note: In a contest between shape and form, form wins – if not in art then at least in paratha-making.

If a certain stroke of the rolling pin will distort your paratha’s disk-like shape but smoothen a doughy bulge, go for it.

If another stroke can salvage its amoeboid appearance but will break open the stretched skin and spill out the dal, resist it.

Of COURSE you must get both right eventually. Parathas perfectly rounded – no raw patches post-cooking, no gaping holes on the surface – is the Holy Grail. Till you haven’t attained that ideal, do as I say: let the shape stray if it comes at the cost of form.

Roll till the dough is stretched thin enough to reveal a translucent vision of dal underneath, and stop at that – about 5 inches in diameter.

Heat a wide, flat pan for cooking the paratha. Place the rolled out paratha on the pan, on medium-high heat. Cook it till the surface facing the heat has started to brown.

Flip the paratha over. You might have to keep adjusting the heat – if the pan gets smoky, set the heat to low.

On the toasted paratha surface now facing up, smear half a teaspoon of ghee.

When the surface heatwards is done, flip it over again and smear this side as well with half a teaspoon of ghee.

Cook both sides of the paratha till toasted to your liking.

Chana dal paratha is ready to serve. Repeat step 5 for all the parathas.

To Serve:

Serve chala dal parathas hot with accompaniments like raita, pickle, chutney.

Meal below: dal parathas with homemade dahi, red capsicum curry, aloo chutney.

Notes:

Check out other interesting recipes to try out with chana dal:

Want more stuffed parathas? Try: