I made this breakfast to brighten my cloudy Saturday morning. This dish is popular and staple in the northern parts of India. Bollywood cinema has always shown you ‘punjabi maa’s’ making parathas with oodles of butter. These parathas are heavenly tasting and and are quite filling.Aloo paratha is my extended version of chapathi-bhaji. As it is a weekend I could compromise on my breakfast timing and tried my hand at paratha making, in fact I was thinking of making parathas for a while now but always found myself busy somehow.

So what we do here is make the chapathi dough from whole wheat flour and keep aside. while the dough rests prepare the magic aloo stuffing and let it cool. After the basics are ready comes the challenge – to stuff the aloo carefully into the dough and roll it well so the stuffing do not peep out of the dough. You might fail to get a neat looking paratha at the first attempt, but you will gradually learn along and make the rest of them with ease and finesse.
Serve parathas hot and with dollops of butter. Add on some chilled curd, pickle and onions. Its a sight to see the butter sinfully melting into the paratha, a heavy meal that, isn’t  it?

Ingredients

Dough
• Flour 2 cups
• Salt 1tsp
• Sugar 1tsp
• Oil/ghee 2-3 tsp
• Water as required

Stuffing

• Potatoes 2 big
• Carrot 1 small grated
• Onion 1 small
• Green chillies 2
• Coriander leaves 2 tbsp
• Lemon juice 2 tsp
• Cumin seeds 2 tsp
• Turmeric powder 1/2tsp
• Coriander powder 1tsp
• Red chilli powder 1/2tsp
• Garam masala powder 1/2tsp
• Chat masala powder 1/2tsp
• Salt to taste
• Oil 2 tsp

• Method

• Cook the potatoes with little salt in a pressure cooker. Drain, peal and keep aside to cool. Do not overcook the potatoes as we do not want it to be watery for the filling.
• Prepare a soft pliable dough and let it rest for 15 minutes.
• Heat oil in a pan.
• Add cumin seeds and let it splutter.
• Add onions and green chillies and fry.
• When the onions become transparent add turmeric, red chilli powder, coriander powder and salt. You omit chilli powder if the heat is perfect for you, else adjust as required.
• Add potatoes and mash well with the back of a spoon or spatula.
• Add grated carrot and mix well.
• Add coriander leaves,garam masala and chat powder and mix.
• Switch of the flame and add lime juice and mix well.
• Let the mixture cool.
• Take a small portion of the dough and roll it to a small poori.
• Add a spoonful of aloo stuffing in the centre.
• Take the edges of dough and pleat them to seal the stuffing completely.
• Press along the centre to flatten the dough ball.
• Dust some wheat powder and roll the dough to a smooth chapathi gently. See to it that the stuffing does not ooze out of the dough.
• Place the rolled paratha in a hot pan/ tawa. sprinkle oil/ ghee along the edges of the paratha. Be generous with the oil or ghee.The pan should be heating on a med-high flame.
• Once the base is partly cooked flip the paratha. Another dose of oil or ghee along the edges.
• Cook both the sides well till they get nice brown spots on them and are crisp.
• Be careful not the break the paratha while flipping.
• Remove from pan to a serving plate and add butter on top.
• Serve parathas hot with pickle, curd and onion rings.