My Mushroom Paratha is a different way to enjoy this delicious and popular Indian flatbread. A whole wheat wrapper is stuffed with a spicy mushroom-onion mixture, then roasted on the griddle.
One of my favorite times of the day is opening up emails you send me, and over the weekend I got this message from a reader, Ruth. “I could eat Indian food every day – both northern and southern,” wrote Ruth who learned to cook from Indian friends. “So please post more Indian recipes.”
I looked through the past few weeks of my blog and realized that I have posted more Italian than Indian recipes recently. Not so strange, when you consider the fact that it’s easy to throw together a great one-pot meal with a pasta, especially if you add a protein component. All you need is a salad and dinner’s on the table. Or in the brown bag.
But like Ruth, I could eat Indian food every day. And I often do. But because Indian meals can be more elaborate than a one-pot recipe — you need rice or roti, a subzi (a cooked vegetable side), and a dal or a curry — it’s not always easy to get a quick and complete Indian meal on the fly. That’s why I often tend to combine components when I can so I have one less thing to make.
A paratha is one of my favorite ways to get vegetables and grains in a single dish. Most of you know what a paratha is — it’s a flatbread stuffed with a vegetable and you can use almost any vegetable, really, with potato being the most common. Cauliflower, radish, sweet potatoes, even tofu make great — and arguably healthier than potato — stuffings.
This time, I decided to stuff my paratha with mushrooms. Until a few years back mushrooms were not a common ingredient in Indian cooking. When I was a child, my father would sometimes get them on a trip down south to the city he grew up in — Belgaum– bringing them with him on the plane or train to Bombay. Those mushrooms, foraged from the wild, would be brown and juicy and meaty and my mom would cook them up in a spicy, exquisite curry.
Just a few years later, button mushrooms became easily available in little plastic packets in grocery stores and you could buy them almost anywhere in the city. Today, despite the reluctance some vegetarians in India exhibit toward this wonderful vegetable because of its meaty taste, mushrooms are a staple of Indian cuisine.
I love mushrooms– crimini, button, shiitake, portabellas, oyster, whatever– I could eat them just about any time. So I knew, even before I started, that these parathas were going to be amazing. And they were.
Mushrooms tend to express a lot of water, so one key step to ensuring your parathas are a success is to remove every trace of moisture from the stuffing. Also, a paratha stuffing should be soft and pliable and as smooth as possible– any big, hard lumps will cause tears in the paratha when you roll it. So be sure to follow instructions closely because every step I take, I take for a reason.
I loved the look of this mushroom paratha too. The mushrooms give a pretty black color, which makes the parathas look quite unique. I roll my parathas really thin because that’s how Desi and I like them. They just taste better that way.
Here’s the recipe for mushroom paratha. Enjoy!
- For the dough:
- 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vegetable oil
- Water
- For the stuffing:
- 8 ounces of crimini mushrooms, use button if you prefer. Your stuffing will be lighter in color, grated
- 1 medium onion, grated
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 1- inch knob of ginger, grated
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp aamchur or mango powder
- 1 heaping tbsp besan or chickpea flour
- Salt to taste
- 1/4 cup finely chopped coriander
- 1 tsp vegetable oil
- Make the dough:
- Mix the flour, salt and oil. Add enough water and knead to make a stiff but pliable dough. Set aside for at least 30 minutes.
- Make the filling:
- Heat the oil. Add the grated onions, ginger and garlic. Add some salt and stir-fry the onions until they start to turn a light golden-brown.
- Add the cayenne, cumin, turmeric and aamchur and saute for a minute.
- Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture is quite dry. Add the besan and salt to taste and stir-fry another two minutes or until there is no visible moisture. The mushroom mixture will hold together when you ball it up.
- To put together the parathas. divide the dough into four pieces.
- Roll each into a smooth ball.
- Take one ball and flatten it with your fingers. Prep the surface you will roll the bread on by flouring it, and flour the rolling pin as well.
- Roll the dough into a disc about four inches in diameter.
- Take one-fourth of the mushroom mixture and make a ball. Place it in the center of the disc of dough.
- Gather the corners of the dough on top, like a dumpling. Seal at the top, roll into a ball, and flour the top and bottom.
- Roll into a disc about six to seven inches in diameter.
- Heat a cast-iron or nonstick griddle. Roast the paratha until golden-brown spots appear on the underside, flip over and cook the other side. Spray a little oil for an extra-crispy paratha.
- Serve hot with a spicy curry like My Dad's Not-Mutton Mushroom Curry, or chutney.
**
More stuffed paratha deliciousness:
Cauliflower-stuffed Paratha (gobi paratha)
*SAVED* to my bookmarks. I would LOVE to eat Indian food everyday too! This looks great; I love love love mushrooms so much too.
Thanks, Mary, I hope you will try it. I love love love mushrooms too. 🙂
Hi Vaishali, just to let you know I have begun following your blog and I love it. I love Indian food, but my Indian cooking has always been really pretty awful, even though I am an otherwise good cook. I have made a couple of recipes from your blog that are just wonderful. These parathas look great. Adding them to my list.
Hi Rosalie, welcome to the blog, and thanks for your kind words! I took a peek at your blog and your recipes look awesome. The Turkish eggplant made my stomach growl with hunger. 🙂 Thanks for trying out my recipes, and letting me know! And hope you will enjoy the parathas as much as we did. 🙂
Oh, WOW! My family loves Indian food. I enjoy it because of all the different spices. Since cooking Indian meals is a bit time consuming, I prepare large batches to freeze for future dinners on nights my teenagers have little time to eat. I haven’t tried making any Indian breads, so this will be a fun introduction. Thank you!
Thanks, Lisa, and parathas can be frozen too. Layer them with wax paper so they don’t stick together, thaw before using, and reheat on a griddle. Enjoy! 🙂
Uhmm not a fan of mushrooms but my husband loves it. Maybe, I should give it a try.
Any tips that you could share to make vegetable parathas?
I tried a while ago and it was a mess:((
Just had my leftover cauliflower pasta from yesterday’s dinner, feeling good after my lunch:)
Remembered you so thought must drop a quick line and I see another new recipe…
Happy Monday!
Sheela
Hi Sheela, the mushrooms don’t taste too mushroomy in this, because they are grated so fine and combined with the spices. If you do try, let me know what you think! About your vegetable parathas question, what vegetable did you use? The key to any paratha stuffing is to get your stuffing really dry because when you leave moisture in the paratha becomes impossible to roll out.
Hey Vaishali, Thanks for your response.
I tried mixed vegetable paratha. Not quite sure why did I try such a challenging one when I know that,I am an amateur cook…Nevertheless, excellent in identifying and dreaming of making yummy recipes:))))
My mixed vegetable paratha filling included aloo, carrots,peas and coriander.
Boring Tuesday:(
Sheela
Hi Sheela, That sounds delicious, though. And the best way to learn cooking is by trial and error. 🙂 Ah, the stories my kitchen (and Desi) could tell you of all the failures I’ve had, and the inedible dinners I’ve made.
I am guessing that with your filling, you boiled the veggies separately and then mashed and didn’t cook afterwards? That would have kept some of the moisture in, esp from the peas.
Boring Tuesday indeed– Saturday’s so far. But we know it’s coming! 🙂
Hi V. What is that red sauce in the photo next to those very sexy Parathas?
Hi Mary, that’s some leftover sauce from My Dad’s Not-Mutton Mushroom Curry. Here’s the fat-free version. https://holycowvegan.net/2012/01/my-dads-not-mutton-mushroom-curry-fat.html
This sounds incredible – I can’t wait to try it!
Thanks, Julia!
I’m curious to know if you sift your flour first as I’ve read that actual Indian chapati/paratha flour is a finer sift wholemeal flour with higher protein (my whole wheat flour is pretty bran-ful!)
Hi Fawn, I use a whole-wheat atta flour from Costco and it doesn’t need any sifting. Neither is the Golden Temple brand that’s available in Indian grocery stores. You can also use white whole wheat, available at Whole Foods.
Ah, thanks, I will try white whole wheat. I’ve used that a lot in baked goods but that makes sense for parathas.
Never thought of stuffing mushrooms in paratha, looks fabulous..
A wonderful variety of paratha, I must say! I’m definitely going to give it a try… Well, it’s my 1st visit to your space and I simply loved exploring it! Happy to connect… See you sometime @ http://cookingwithsj.com/ 🙂