Paratha

Pictured here are paratha and baba ganoush. The baba ganoush was nice, though, from how it sounds, not as nice as Monique's. I broiled the eggplant rather too long and, instead of a lovely roasted flavor, the baba ganoush had more of a burnt flavor. Also, I would suggest pureeing the eggplant rather than mashing it--just a textural preference on my part.

I've wanted to make paratha ever since Christmas when I tried a bread of my brother's which he dubbed "paratha." As an aside, my brother's version wasn't a flat bread paratha but a raised bread with an eggwash gloss to the crust. Delicious. My paratha, however, was disastrous. The dough itself is quite simple--I made it using a generous portion of whole wheat flour and rolled each paratha thinly before frying them off in a cast-iron skillet. The fatal flaw was, I think, too little oil and perhaps a frying pan which was too hot. By day 2, the paratha nearly broke my teeth--they were that hard. They were spotted with char (i.e., burnt in flavor), yet somehow still tasted of unbaked dough. Perhaps with more oil, they could have been crispy like chips. Or perhaps with less whole wheat flour, they could have been softer. Or maybe they needed to be more carefully stored overnight. I couldn't say, but the summary is as follows: this round of cooking did not pay off.