Malabar Spinach Sorghum(Jowar) Paratha- vegan
Malabar spinach ( known as Bachali kura in telugu, Basale) , which is not of the spinach family, originated in South Asia, and loves to be perennial in warmer climates. Succulent leaves, rich in Vit A, C, iron, Calcium, are used in multiple cooking purposes. It so happened that this year it loved growing a lot in my garden and I tried to play with it in as many dishes as I can. This paratha abundant in greens, is surprisingly soft , and nutritiously dense.
An easy hack to boost the vegetable intake is to add as many veggies as possible to the usual dishes made, be it roti, dosa, idli or even pasta or noodles. I realized how much I have been missing on, by making plain rotis, and now I do not make roti/ paratha without adding veggies. Commonly used ones are any greens that I have on had, which are easy to blanch, or saute and then made to a puree before adding to the dough. Sweetpotato, avocaodo, beetroot are also interesting alternatives to try to include in the dough.
To kick up the scope of nutrition in any roti/ paratha, you can even add hemp hearts, chia seeds, flax powder while mixing the dough. Addition of ginger, turmeric, cumin, or black pepper will aid in many anti-inflammatory properties of the final product.
This malabar spinach paratha hides the taste of greens, while imparting a vibrant green color to the paratha. It pairs well with many traditional gravy dishes. My personal perfect pairing is with the babycorn mushroom gravy that can be found on this blog. https://myfoodbliss.com/baby-corn-mushroom-gravy/
Malabar spinach Sorghum paratha
Equipment
- Tortilla press – optional
- Blender to puree the greens
Ingredients
- 1 cup Jowar /Sorghum flour
- 1/2 cup Wheat flour
- 2 cups Malabar spinach leaves sauteed, pureed
- 1/2 avocado optional
- 1 /4 tsp Ginger powder or fresh ginger
- 1/4 tsp Cumin powder
- 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/2 cup Water
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Boil 1/2 cup water with pinch of salt. Add jowar flour and stir, for 3-4 min. Take the jowar dough into a bowl and then add the malabar spinach puree ( saute the leaves with pinch of salt ,till they wilt, and most of the water is gone. Then puree the leaves. Do not add any water to the leaves) to the dough. If you plan on adding avocado, just mash about 1/2 medium ripe avocado and add at this stage. Usually oil or ghee are added in some paratha preparation processes, but here I substituted that fat with healthy avocado. You can skip both avocado and oil altogether too. Then add the ginger, cumin, turmeric powders. Add the wheat flour to bring it all together into a smooth mixture. Mix the dough with your hands and let it rest for 20 min. * You can make this paratha only with jowar flour and skip the wheat flour, but the paratha will be less softer and might make it harder to roll, if you are not used to using jowar-gluten free flour.
- Make medium sized dough balls. Roll into slightly thicker flat bread (parathas) with a rolling pin. If finding it hard or sticky, place the dough in between two parchment papers and roll it. then fry them on the griddle on medium heat. If you cannot peel the paratha off the parchment paper, put it on the griddle with the parchment paper and you should be able to peel the paper in 30 sec once the paratha starts cooking. Serve with hot baby corn mushroom curry found at https://myfoodbliss.com/baby-corn-mushroom-gravy/