Paneer Parathas

Paneer is rich in protein and calcium. It is 100% vegetarian cheese. Paneer can be cooked with dishes or used as toppings, totally making a dish appetizing. For vegetarians, this is a rich source of the nutrients. You can safely add upto 100 grams of paneer in a daily diet for growing children. The exercise they get from work and play will compensate for the fat.

While we lived in Johor and Niki went to school in Singapore, the car would be down the block at 6:30 every morning and the packed lunch she used to carry would be a hurriedly prepared dish.

So every evening when she got back home she needed some filling snack. She would happily eat a whole bowl of kootu or vegetables with pasta. Whenever we shopped in Mustafa, she used to pick few packets of a famous Indian brand ready-to-eat parattas that came in varieties. She used to toss them in the pan or microwave and have them.

Later, I started preparing them and storing in the deep freezer for easy consumption. This practice helped my husband while we moved to Egypt and I travelled to India often.

I make aloo parathas, paneer parathas and mooli parathas this way and they can be stored in freezer bags for upto a month. They never have stayed that long though.

Paneer parathas are easy to make and you may adjust spices as per requirement.

Ingredients: (For 8 parathas)

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup crumbled paneer

8 teaspoons any chutney

Salt as required for the flour and the paneer

3 teaspoons cooking oil

Method:

Add required salt to the crumbled paneer (I have used the recipe for paneer from A2Z Vegetarian Cuisine).

I made some coriander chutney by grinding fresh coriander leaves, salt, 1 green chilli and 1 tablespoon yoghurt.

Mix the flour with some oil and salt. Adding water knead into a smooth chappathi dough. Cover with a damp cloth and leave for an hour.

Divide in 16 portions and roll in smooth balls.

Roll out chappattis of 5" diameter of each portion. On the top half of each spread the chutney evenly.

On top of eight such rolled parathas, spread the crumbled paneer leaving some space along the edges.

Cover this with another empty rolled paratha. Press both into place at the edges sealing well.

Roll the rolling pin gently over the paratha so they seal tight.

Heat a tawa and cook the prepared paratha adding some oil until done.

Repeat for all the rest of the parathas.

Serve hot with yoghurt and pickle.

If you plan to freeze them, cook until half done turning both the sides. Allow to cool. Place sheets of plastic between two parathas and place the bunch in freezer safe bags.

Take the parathas out of the freezer 15 minutes before serving and cook on hot tawa until done.

Consume hot as re-heated parathas get hard when they cool down.

I'm sending these paneer parathas to JFI event, started by Indira of Mahanandi, currently hosted as JFI Paneer @ The Spice Who Loved Me, through November,

and to

Food For 7 Stages of Life co-hosted by Radhika and Sudeshna, featuring food for ages 4 to 14 until December the 5th.