Recipe- South Indian Style Layered Parota

A loyal reader of my blog has requested Parotta recipe many weeks ago and I never got down to making it until this week. The soft and flaky Parotta, also known as Barotta or Porotta, is popular in the Southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. It is a common sight to find crowds thronging the road side stalls where heaps of layered parottas hot off the stove are served with a curry both for breakfast and evening tiffin or dinner. This popular street food fare is usually served with salna or kurma. The side dish with parottas include both vegetarian and non vegetarian style gravy dishes.

There are numerous avatars of Parotta where the shape and accompaniments vary from region to region. Kerala or Malabar Parotta is usually served with vegetable, chicken, egg, beef and mutton curries while in Tamil Nadu, it is served with either vegetable salna or chicken salna.

Ingredients

Maida 4 cups (plain flour or all purpose flour)
Salt 1 tsp
Sugar 1 tsp
Oil 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup, approx
Water as required

Method

* In a bowl, add maida, salt and sugar and mix well. Slowly add water and make a soft dough. Add a tbsp of oil and mix into the dough. Cover the dough with a lid and allow to rest for at least 2 to 3 hours.

* Grease your work surface and your hands with oil and pinch dough to make smooth round tennis sized balls. Place the balls on the greased work surface and grease the balls with oil.

* Take each ball and roll it like a thick roti (approx 4"-5") in diameter using a rolling pin and place the rolled out rotis on the greased work surface. Place them each next to each other. Grease the thick rotis well. Allow to rest for 10 mts.

* Take a rolled out thick roti and spread it out thin using a rolling pin or using your palms and fingers to stretch out into a thin sheet.

* The key is to spread it out super thin and as large as you can. Keep smearing oil as your spread the sheet. The shape is really not important. Even if there are a couple of tears, it is completely fine.

* Now using the fingers, slowly lift up one end of the sheet and make pleats moving towards the other end.

* Once its pleated hold one end of the long strip and roll it towards the other end to create a rosette and tuck the end under the rosette.

* Prepare with the rest of other thick rotis and keep the rosettes greased at all times. Allow to rest for 10 mts.

* On the greased work surface, place each rosette and roll into a thick parotta, smearing oil as your roll out. Ensure the parottas are well greased.

* Heat a tawa on high flame. Once the tawa heats up, place the thick parotta on the tawa and cook on both sides till golden brown on medium high flame. Drizzle oil as your roast them on the hot tawa.

* Prepare parottas with rest of the rosettes in a similar fashion. Now take each parotta, place on the work surface and using both your hands, crush them together similar to clapping action. This helps to open up the layers of the parotta.

* Repeat this action with all the roasted parottas. Serve parotta with vegetable salna or chicken salna.