Gobi Paratha

A winter breakfast from Punjab

Stuffed parathas are at the heart of the Punjabi breakfast, and gobi is the winter version, cooked when the cauliflower in the market is white, tight and cheap. The same technique produces aloo paratha and paneer paratha, but cauliflower is the trickiest of the three, because it is wet, loose and has no starch to hold it together. Across North India, gobi paratha is commonly eaten at breakfast with a blob of white butter, curd and pickle, and packed in tiffins for lunch. Dhabas along the highways also serve them through the cooler months.

Controlling the water

Cauliflower is full of water, and salt pulls it out quickly. Salted and left for ten minutes, a bowl of grated gobi sits in a small puddle, and that liquid will tear the dough or leak onto the tawa. The older dhaba method handles this by squeezing the grated gobi after salting and stuffing it raw, or by salting it right at the end and working fast. That method works for practised hands and gives a fresh, slightly crunchy filling.

This recipe gives the gobi four minutes in a hot pan before spicing, a shortcut that makes life far easier for a first-timer. The filling is drier, the raw cabbage-like smell is gone, and it binds better, at the cost of a little freshness. Salt still goes in last, stirred through right before you start rolling. If you are working in batches, salt only a third of the filling at a time.

Grate finely. Coarse pieces of floret act like small stones and push through the dough. A food processor on short pulses works well, but stop as soon as the pieces look like rice, or you will end up with a wet paste.

Sealing and rolling

A soft dough stretches around the filling without cracking, so resist the urge to make it firmer. The dough circle should be thick in the middle, because that is the part under most strain. Keep the filling a little smaller than feels right. A first-timer does best with a stuffing ball roughly the same size as the dough ball. Experienced cooks can manage more. Roll using the weight of the pin alone, moving from the middle outwards, and lift and turn the paratha often so that it does not stick.

Rescuing a torn paratha

A small tear is no disaster. Press a pinch of dry flour on it and roll on; the patch cooks in with no trouble. A big tear means the stuffing was wet or too much. Scoop out some of the filling, press the sides back together and roll again more thickly. If the filling has gone wet in the bowl, drain it through a sieve, squeeze it in a cloth, and sprinkle in a spoonful of roasted besan or atta to soak up what is left. If your parathas turn out leathery, the dough was too stiff or the tawa too cool, since the bread dried out before it browned. Raise the heat and shorten the time.

Swaps and a lighter version

Finely grated radish, known as mooli, or grated carrot can be mixed in, with a similar water warning. Chopped methi leaves make a nice addition in winter, and amchur can be swapped for a squeeze of lemon. Oil can replace ghee to make a vegan paratha, as long as nothing dairy goes on the plate. Mixing some besan or a multigrain flour into the atta works, but the dough tears more easily, so roll it thicker. To lighten the meal, cook with a dry tawa until almost done, then brush lightly with half a teaspoon of ghee per paratha. They stay nearly as tasty, and the gobi paratha dish page gives sourced figures per piece for comparison.

Serving and storing

Serve straight from the tawa with thick curd, a sharp pickle and a dab of white butter if it is an occasion. A cup of masala chai is the common morning pairing, while a glass of spiced buttermilk fits a lunch. For a balanced everyday plate, the healthy eating essentials course looks at how a dish like this can fit into a normal week.

Cooked parathas keep for a day at room temperature in a closed box, or two days in the refrigerator, wrapped in a clean cloth. Warm them on a hot tawa for a minute on each side. Half-cooked parathas freeze well for a month. Cook them dry on the tawa until just set with no colour, cool them, stack with baking paper between each and freeze them in a bag. They can go straight from the freezer onto a medium tawa with a little ghee. Unsalted, cooled filling keeps for a day in the refrigerator, and the dough for two days, so most of the work can be done the night before.