First Came the Methi Paratha

I got this recipe from the bai back home, had to coax it out of her. Took time and patience and a lot of re-verification and corroboration of facts from different sources, but the end product was a good approximation of the original - even if I say so myself. Me being of the less reticent types, am ready to share the secrets of the Methi Paratha with those whom perfection(paratha-wise) may have eluded so far.

1. First, you need to get yourself a bunch of methi, a small bunch serves 2 (Sushi and Sashimi sized 2). Then you'd need to separate the leaves from the stems, until there are about 3 fistfuls of methi leaves all eagerly waiting to be chopped. For chopped, they must be if at all you want to avoid the sensation of chewing on a bunch of grass( which we did) and it is only the flavour thereof that you are after(which we were). First, they must be washed though (without detergent will do) and then chopped length wise, then width wise, length wise again, until you get something that looks like this -
Pretty neat huh?
2. Moving on, what you'd want next is the dough and this requires some very sophisticated and complex mixing (uh...no, not quite, not mixing as in cocktails). A little bit of regular atta, some besan (depending on the yellowness desired), haldi( depending on the degree of further yellowness preferred), lal-mirch powder, if you like things hot, and ajwain (I add ajwain to everything I make - my kitchen traditions). some g-g paste(ginger garlic), curd and then finally water. Water's to be added with a lot of deliberation 'cause this is the make or break point of the entire dough which is so essential to the success of your parathas. Too much water and it becomes runny, too little and it doesn't knead. Providing you have put in all the ingredients and in the right quantities, you are ready to knead. There are no restrictions as to how the kneading should proceed as long as the end result looks like -
Oops, I mean like this - (the one above is a picture of kneading in progress).


3. Okay, we are getting somewhere now! Next, we break the dough above into bite sized, make that cookie sized little spheres, vis-a-vis ,
I'm not gonna say what the dry atta in the corner is for. Na, that'll be my own little trade secret. What happens next is fairly simple - you roll out the little spheres into flat circles or the closest approximation to a circle that you can get , depending on your skills in that area. Put the dough-circle things on the tawa, swab in a good deal of (refined) oil (Sushi's suggestion) and blot the excess out with kitchen towels (my own brilliant idea) as you turn your parathas round and round on the tawa on their way to bakedom.

Voila!