Palak Parathas: Pan-Fried Flatbread with Spinach

I cook with spinach quite a lot – in curries, as a base for green pasta sauce, in spinach dal and spinach rice. Here is yet another use of this lovely green vegetable. Spinach parathas or palak parathas.

You Need:

• Spinach – one bunch
• Atta – 1 cup
• Nigella seeds – 1/2 teaspoon
• Asafoetida – a pinch
• Ajwain (carom seeds) – 1/2 teaspoon (optional)
• Green chili – 1, chopped fine (optional)
• Salt – a pinch
• Cooked yellow dal – a few teaspoons, for kneading
• Butter – for cooking

How To Make Palak Parathas:

Preparing the dough:

Destem spinach. Wash the leaves well and shake/pat them dry. Chop the spinach leaves finely.

Sift together the dry ingredients (atta, besan, carom seeds, nigella seeds, salt) so that they blend evenly. Add to the chopped spinach and green chili.

Knead. You will probably not need any additional water at all to knead this. If you feel that the dough is dry, add a teaspoon or two of cooked dal. If you don’t have dal handy, water will do.

Knead the dough stiffer than you would for regular parathas. Spinach releases water gradually so even if the dough feels dry when just-kneaded, it becomes sticky in a few minutes.

Let the kneaded dough stand covered for at least 15 minutes.

Cooking the parathas:

Just like any layered parathas. If you recall my last post, I made them square-shaped, with butter between the folds and toasted them on a non-stick pan with butter.

To Serve:

My favorite combination of palak parathas is with aloo-tamatar curry, yogurt and pickle.