Tag: West Indian recipe

Cakes & Bakes: Paratha

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Paratha with curry & rice | H is for Home #recipe #paratha #flatbread

When we order an Indian takeaway we always include a portion of breads to go with our curries. Our favourite is paratha – an unleavened, fried flatbread made with wholemeal flour. The name originates from the words ‘parat’ and ‘atta’ which means layers of cooked dough.

They can sometimes be made stuffed with vegetables, paneer or potatoes (aloo). We prefer them plain – and this time I’ve made half the batch studded with pan fried cumin seeds (geera).

Traditionally they’re cooked on a tawa but a large, cast iron frying pan will do. If you don’t want to eat all the parathas in one go, you can prepare the dough up to stage 10 and freeze the extra. Just place each circle between 2 pieces of parchment paper, stack them one on top of the other, wrap in cling film or zip-lock bag and store flat.

Paratha

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Ingredients
  

  • 450 g plain flour I used an equal amount of chapatti flour + a little extra for dusting
  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 350 ml water approx
  • 45 g ghee clarified butter or vegetable oil
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds geera
  • 55 g vegetable oil for brushing
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Instructions
 

  • Sift together the flour, baking powder & salt
  • Add enough of the water to form a smooth, soft dough
  • Knead well and leave to relax for ½ hour covered with a damp cloth
  • In a small frying pan over a medium heat, dry fry the cumin seeds for about 3 minutes, shaking continuously to stop burning. Set aside
  • After the dough has relaxed, re-knead and divide into four balls (loyah)
  • Flour surface and roll out each dough ball into 20-23cm/8-9inch circle
  • Sprinkle half the dough with the cumin seeds
  • Spread with some ghee and sprinkle with a little flour
  • Cut rolled dough circles from centre to edge. Roll each tightly into a cone. Press the peak of the cone into the centre and flatten. Leave to rest for 30 minutes
  • Flour the surface again and roll out the dough very thinly with a rolling pin
  • Cook on a moderately hot, greased tawa/frying pan for 1 minute
  • Turn over, brush with ghee/oil and cook for another minute
  • As each one is cooked, stack on top of each other, wrap them in a clean tea towel and move on to the next
  • Eat immediately

Cakes & Bakes: Cassava pone

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square slice of cassava pone on a plate with scoop of home-made coconut ice cream

Cassava pone takes me right back to my childhood in Trinidad. It’s something I remember eating at my grandmother’s house and when we went visiting family at Christmas and, in my late teens, sleeping over at old school friends’ houses and having Sunday lunch after waking up late due to us being out ’til all hours the previous night.

Our local Morrisons supermarket recently underwent a refurbishment and as part of it extended their fresh fruit & veg ranges to include much more exotic fare. Incredible Edible might be rubbing off a bit! Along with things like white asparagus, samphire, 7 kinds of mushrooms and 3 kinds of aubergine, they’ve started stocking cassava! One of our favourite mantras is, “Use it, or lose it”. We don’t want Morrisons thinking that the people of Todmorden aren’t interested in their new & improved selection and revert to the bad old days where there was just stacks of potatoes & carrots. I bought some cassava this week to have a go at making pone for the very first time.

Cassava pone

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Ingredients
  

  • 3 cups grated cassava
  • 1½ cups grated coconut
  • ½ cup grated pumpkin
  • 1½ cups granulated sugar
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon or mixed spice
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1½ tsp black pepper
  • 3 cups milk or water

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4
  • Mix cassava, coconut and pumpkin in a large bowl
  • Add sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and black pepper
  • Add milk to ingredients and combine well
  • Pour into a greased shallow pan 30cm x 20cm x 5cm
  • Bake for 1-1¼ hours
  • Allow to cool before slicing into squares and serve

I followed the recipe from a book I bought on our last trip to T&T entitled, The Multi-Cultural Cuisine of Trinidad & Tobago & the Caribbean. Instead of using a hand grater I chose the easy option and used my food processor with its 4mm grater attachment – a mistake! The bits of coconut were too big and the texture of the pone was coarse and a bit chewy. The flavour was great though. Next time, I’ll use the 2mm attachment – or bite the bullet and do all that grating by hand!