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Long years ago, when we were camping with our parents in Fatehpur Sikri, an old chowkidar in the rest house had treated us to, what he claimed was, a sau-parat ka parantha, a parantha with a hundred layers. It tasted like heaven with bharwan shahi baingan. But we digress. The parantha may not have had a hundred layers but many more than the four in a homemade parantha were visible. The art that this bawarchi had mastered was of preparing the dough for his parantha in a manner akin to puff pastry. Butter or ghee was applied to the disc being rolled out every time it was folded in a crescent and refolded in a triangle. Forget 100, even 16 layers is dazzling. Tell us honestly do you ever count the flaky layers in mille feuille?
Pakki rasoi A parantha is considered pakki rasoi i.e. ‘properly’ cooked food (shallow or deep fried, not boiled) that is the traditionally prescribed diet for the orthodox. Those who couldn’t afford such rich food or were concerned about health devised ways of preparing the parantha with not a drop of excess expensive ghee. A coin wrapped in a handkerchief was dipped in a bowl of ghee to apply a very light film of fat on the rolled bread that was then cooked like regular roti. A well-made, flaky parantha, even when seductively blistered on the outside is soft within and not chewy at all. It is equally enjoyable hot from the tawa or tandoor or at room temperature. That is the reason the parantha is immensely popular at breakfast and has a special place in the school and office tiffin pack. Affordable meal Roadside kiosks or pushcarts on railway platforms do thriving business in paranthas. Even in these hard times of spiralling prices, it remains an affordable one-dish meal. A slice of pickle comes complimentary and often a small portion of dahi. Not only in the cities of Punjab and Haryana but also in Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Allahabad, mobile parantha vendors throng the commercial areas, bus stands and railway stations. The variety encountered is mind-boggling to say the least. When we were children over almost six decades back, the paranthas cooked at home were elegant triangles of not less than four distinct layers laced with ajwain seeds and lightly salted. They were paired with seasonal vegetables not dahi. Stuffed paranthas, almost always with potatoes, were made for consumption during a journey or for picnics. Tandoori take The round parantha, stuffed with a myriad fillings, alu/muli/ gobhi/methi/ matar entered and proliferated with the Punjabi refugees, post-Partition. At home, gurh ka parantha was often prepared to tickle the sweet tooth. Dahi and pickle carved out a niche as preferred accompaniments of the savory parantha. The tandoori parantha, introduced by the Punjabis on the move, this writer believes, was “invented” to lick the problem of cold chewy roti. As a matter of fact, the Amritsari kulcha is the real tandoori parantha packed with mouth-watering savory stuff. Be that as it may, nowadays lots of health conscious persons opt for the un-fried tandoori option though they absentmindedly spread the freshly churned butter quite generously on its surface! One dhaba, we know, at Gajraula lightens the guilt by offering Nutrilite instead of Amul! Lachcha parantha and pudina parantha bear testimony to the ingenuity of dhaba owners. Paneer and keema parantha mark next stages in the evolution of this bread. Other regions boast of their own versions. In Lucknow the famous melt-in-the-mouth gaulati kebab is invariably served with ulte tawe ka parantha, presented as a tempting crisp cone at times. Delhi’s Paranthewali Gali tucked in the entrails of crowded Chandni Chowk is more than 125 years old and still going strong. Besides the usual suspects, you can also sample some unusual creations here. The list — long and laboured to upstage competition next door — includes tamatar/nimbu/mirchi and paparh ke paranthe. Walls of legendary eateries here are adorned with fading framed photographs of the founding fathers of Indian Republic, contemporary city politicians peppered with sundry gluttonous celebrities. The parantha here, like the shami in the walled city, more deep-fried than shallow fried in deshi ghee is served with at least one dry and other in gravy vegetable. Both eschew onions and garlic. Saunth ki chutney and a spoonful of dahi too are there. To be honest, these outlets are strong on atmospherics rather weak on taste. Jumbo edition The mother-father or grand-dad of all paranthas for us remains the Jumbo dished out at the Ramababu Parantha Bhandar in eponymously named ‘Belanganj’ (Street of Rolling Pin) in Agra. Humungous paranthas are first baked on Titanic griddles, weighing over 35 kilos, and then shallow fried. Filled with matar and methi in season, alu and gobhi remain the staples, while those with mawa enriched with dried fruits are novelty items. The USP of the parantha is the hard-to-translate Hindi word khastagi. Mushy ghotuwan sabzi is usually prepared with pumpkin and jhol resembles a thin, sour curd-based karhi. Fresh home-made chunka achaar is, in fact, a large helping of a la dente vegetables in pickling spices. Babloo Khandelwal makes up the third generation of this family. In Kashmir, rice rules the roost. But when a valued guest turns up unexpectedly, maybe the son-in-law at the time of brunch or an afternoon snack, it was a parantha oozing ghee accompanied with the sausage-shaped kofta that were the first choice of the housewife. Bihar and Eastern UP are the realm of sattu and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that in this part of our country, a parantha delicacy, the makhuni is greatly relished. Mughlai paranthas Moving farther East, in Kolkata we come across the mince-packed Mughlai parantha and the Daccai parantha. The first, we are told, is a part of the culinary legacy left behind by the royal exile from Awadh Wazid Ali Shah and the second traces its lineage to the glorious era of trading with Arabs much before the Mughals had extended the imperial frontier to Bengal. Nizam’s kathi kebab born in the City of Joy is essentially an egg-coated parantha roll. Bidari parantha from the city in the Deccan famous for exquisite inlaid metal ware has a distinct identity accented by the addition of a small measure of suji (semolina) to the flour when it is sifted and sieved with salt. A little ghee is incorporated when the dough is kneaded. Anda parantha manifests itself in many avatars. The simplest version has a crisp coating of whipped egg, while the fancier recipe involves filling the half-fried bread with a mixture of beaten egg, finely chopped green chillies, onions, ginger and coriander via a cut made with a sharp knife in its belly. There are a dozen parantha outlets that have become landmark foodie destinations for signature paranthas. In the Bohra Muslim community’s culinary repertoire, the egg parantha — baida parantha —is treated as celebratory bread. The strictly vegetarian and frugal Gujaratis love thepla that wonderful bread that inhabits the twilight zone between roti and parantha.
What is interesting is that even in southern India, where dosai, uttapam, pesarettu and appam reign supreme, the parantha has not only managed to survive but found a loyal following. What goes by the name of parantha in Karnataka or Tamil Nadu is closer to a chapatti made with maida and is generally served with kurma, no relation of the similar-sounding qorma. The ‘king’ here is the Malabar or Ceylon Parantha that resembles in appearance a North Indian lachcha parantha. Prepared with maida, it is shallow fried and eaten with vegetarian or non-vegetarian ‘roast’/stew or gulped down with sweet, strong hot tea! We have literally lived on it in Kochhi and Madurai. The shelves in food marts these days are overflowing with packets of factory made ‘heat n eat’ parantha of all kinds — lachcha, pudina, Malabar and more. They are much more expensive than their roadside cousins but are well worth a try for the hygiene conscious and, of course, for sheer convenience.
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A
parantha, or the layered bread, according to some food historians, was “created” by Arabs when their modest-looking breads encountered the puffed-up poori in Hindustan! This view is supported by the evidence or lack of it of the parantha’s existence on the subcontinent in the ancient period. It was not long before the parantha became the beloved child of the Indian soil.
Southern avtar 