Mooli Parathas (white radish flat bread)

In the years gone by when I lived in UK we used to visit a small restaurant in Southall which was a family run place. They used to do a lot of different stuffed parathas like aloo (potato),  gobi (cauliflower), mooli (white radish / daikon), methi (fenugreek leaves) and paneer (soft cheese). I have also come across onion parathas, peas  stuffed parathas too recently. While I am good at making aloo parathas and make them more often now that I am able to use my hands more, the only other one I have tried is methi parathas or shall I say the Gujarati version of methi thepla. 

The couple of times I have tried making mooli parathas turned out to be a stressful disaster. The first time I just grated the mooli and mixed some spices like salt, red chilli powder and turmeric. Then I rolled out the chappati dough into a small circle and put a spoonful of the prepared mooli in and made a ball before rolling it out again. Now the mooli is full of water and that it releases the water when it is grated. This made the rolling out a disaster as the dough kept getting wetter and breaking up. The second time I looked up a recipe and saw that you needed to grate the mooli and squeeze out the water by hand. Then temper it with some oil and cumin, add salt, chilli and turmeric powder and cook it. Once cooled, you can go about stuffing as before into the rolled out dough. It seems I really did not get all the water out of the mooli as this still lead to a wet gloopy disaster when rolling out the paratha.

Then a friend told me of a different approach and I also saw it on the Panjabi episode of Madhur Jaffery’s Curry Nation. It suddenly looked doable to me and so the next visit to the green grocers I bought a mooli. Now it was huge but I thought if all goes well loads of parathas or else I can pickle some and add to salads.

·        Ingredients for the dough

3 packed cups of grated mooli (measure the mooli after the water has been squeezed out)

3 cups of Plain wheat / chapatti flour

2 table spoons of oil (vegetable or olive oil)

3 teaspoons of salt

4 medium sized green chillies finely chopped

Oh yes I get very confused when I read the measurements in cups without any indication of the amount in the cup. My cups hold 225 mls of liquid.

·        Preparation of the dough

Grate the mooli ( I know the amount seems a bit vague but seriously I was experimenting and I would expect a whole mooli would be adequate) I only measured the amounts I had after draining the water. Mix the salt in the grated mooli and place in a colander over a bowl. Leave it for a half hour at the most and you will see that the water is dripping out of the mooli into the bowl. Now you will need to manually squeeze out the water from the mooli and place it in a different plate. Once all the water has been squeezed out you need to save the water as it can be used for kneading the dough. Since there is salt in the water you would not need to add more salt to the wheat flour. Indeed the mooli water adds extra flavour. To the flour add 1 table spoon of oil and mix it. Then add the mooli and the green chillies and mix it well… only then you will have an idea of the amount of water to add to get a medium consistency of dough just as you get if you were making plain parathas or chapattis. Once the dough comes together take the other tablespoon of oil in your hands and knead the dough nice and smooth.

·        Preparing the parathas

Do not leave the dough for a long time as more water can get released from the mooli and then you will have to remedy the situation by adding more flour. This makes the amount of mooli sparse in the paratha.

Put a flat griddle or tawa on the hob to get it heating. Have a small bowl of oil and teaspoon to brush the paratha with oil as it is cooking. It is useful to get a foil ready to cover your parathas and keep them warm.  Take a dough ball big enough to fill your palm. Flatten it a little and cover it with flour before rolling it out. This use of flour as you are rolling out keeps the dough from sticking on to the rolling pin (Gujarati word is velan) or the surface you are rolling it on. Some people can use the work surface tops or wooden or marble patlo (a Gujarati word for the surface you roll out your chapattis).

The parathas should be rolled out to about half centimetre thick at the most. Thinner than that could break the dough up as the mooli will be small bits that cannot be rolled out. Put on the hot griddle and wait for it to warm up and start to get cooked. Turn it over once and brush with oil. Then turn over again and brush the other side with oil. The cooked paratha will have some blistering and darkening patches. 

These amounts of ingredients will make about 10 to 12 parathas. You can enjoy them with hot mango pickle or raita or dal. Hope you enjoy it as much as my guests and I did.