Chilli parotta

Quarantine mode has a lot of us experimenting a lot more in the kitchen isn’t it? D has been on a ‘I want to eat something different’ mode for a while now. Boredom being the primary reason I guess :). Both mil & I are happy cooking different stuff for him. The only part we (esp mil) isn’t happy about is coming up with the what to do part? 🙂 Especially for dinner. D is pretty content with traditional south indian food for lunch. However, for dinner he wants ‘something different’. The real problem is that he doesn’t mostly give ideas on the ‘something different’.. he leaves it to us to come up with choices & mostly ends up rejecting most of the options we give :D. However, when I suggested chilli parotta to him 2 days back he was all excited. So we bought some ID just heat parottas and I made it for dinner last night. I had a good feeling about it turning out well (the why part of it below) & so decided to record measurements & take pictures and I am so glad I did that. It came out so yummy. My mil liked it so much and wished we had some extra for us to have :). Mil & I just ended up tasting this because it was made just for D.

The minute I decided to blog this, I was thinking of how I should take the final picture and got all super excited since it got me all nostalgic. I knew the only prop I needed for this photo, my appa’s chain. My appa was the one who introduced me to these cult dishes. Vasantha Bhavan & the other Bhavans had these deep fried, surely not good but yummy versions of parotta (chilli parotta) and idli (fried idli). My dad being the foodie that he was ate out quite a bit & took us out once in a while too (mom had to be convinced on this bit :)). When he took us out he knew exactly what my brother & I had to order and eat. So I just knew I had to associate my dad to my final pic & the immediate thought that came to me is this chain that he always wore with a rudraksham on it. This chain was a long one and used to come till my dad’s upper belly. My dad had a big belly (dhondi) and he used to snore while sleeping. So when he would sleep in the afternoons you could typically see this rudraksham go up and down on the belly :). It was a sight I enjoyed even back then & I probably enjoy it even more now reminiscing about it. The rudraksham even had some soap bits on it because he was one of those who directly used soap on his body (and not just the foam). When my dad passed away, there were a few things I told my mom & brother that I wanted of my dad and one of them is this chain. I have it kept in a pouch. I have literally preserved the chain exactly as it was when my dad used it (with the soap bits). There are times I feel low or times I miss my dad and go pick up this chain and hold it in my hand. There is an instant happiness that comes when I do that because there is a flash of happy memories that come the minute I see this chain. He was a happy man who led a happy life, ate a lot of fried food happily (Adya & I have clearly picked up on this gene), loved coffee, cricket & his friends. Had his favourite coffee just a little while before he breathed his last breath (my brother specifically told me this when we met in person because its something my dad always spoke about wanting to do as the last thing before he passed away).

As I was setting up for the final pic (I did the setup before making the dish), I knew this dish was going to come out brilliant because there were just too many happy thoughts associated to it. My dad was a brilliant impromptu cook and I am sure this dish had all the blessings from him from above :). No kidding, D licked the plate clean (literally).

And on a final note, Jan (my childhood bestie also used to order this dish quite often. Either this or veg fried rice from utmost south indian restaurants :). Jan, like how? why veg fried rice from Saravana bhavan or Sangeetha? 🙂

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Chilli parotta

Prep Time

5 mins

Cook Time

25 mins

 

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Indian

Servings: 1 person

Ingredients

• 2 medium parottas I used ID parottas
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 medium capsicum
• 1 large onion
• 2 pods garlic
• 1/2 thumb ginger
• 1 no green chilli
• 1/8 tsp turmeric powder
• 3/4 tsp red chilli powder
• 1/4 tsp kashmiri chilli powder
• 1/4 tsp garam masala
• 2 tbsp tomato sauce/ ketchup
• 1/2 tsp soya sauce
• a handful fresh coriander leaves

Instructions

1. Prep work – Grind ginger garlic & green chilli together into a paste. Chop onion & capsicum into cube size pieces. Finely chop coriander leaves.

2. Heat a flat tawa/ pan & cook/ toast the parottas till both sides turn golden brown.

3. Use a little oil while toasting the parottas.

4. Once the parottas are done, place them on a plate and fluff/ scrunch them using your hands.

5. Chop into pieces using a pair of scissors. Set it aside.

6. Heat a heavy bottom kadai/ pan with 1T oil.

7. Once hot, throw in the capsicum & saute on high heat till it starts to change colour (roughly 1 minute)

8. Now throw in the onion, ground ginger garlic green chilli paste & saute till onion turns translucent.

9. Add in the spices 3/4t red chilli powder, 1/4t kashmiri chilli powder, 1/8t turmeric powder, 1/4t garam masala, 2T tomato sauce/ ketchup, 1/2t soya sauce and some salt.

10. Add 1t water & mix everything together on low flame.

11. Throw in the chopped parotta pieces & toss everything together. Check & adjust salt.

12. Finally add the chopped coriander leaves & turn off heat.

13. Serve hot alongside some onion raita.

Recipe Notes

1. As always, add less red chilli powder if you prefer less spice.
2. That 1/2t soya sauce really adds a great flavour to this dish. So don’t skimp on it. 
3. Dinesh felt the capsicum could have been cut smaller.
4. If you are lazy to grind the ginger garlic & green chilli, just chop these into small pieces. 
5. We used the ready to eat ID parottas.

Stepwise pictures

Prep work – Grind ginger garlic and green chilli into a paste. Chop onion & capsicum into cube size pieces. Finely chop fresh coriander leaves.