Yesterday, I slacked off on almost everything, I felt super lazy to even look at the kitchen, let alone cooking. This is not an unusual feeling for me, because as much as enthusiasm I show in cooking on certain days, that much slackness I show on certain other days. So last day was such a dull day for me. I don’t have to worry if the stove is not lit in my kitchen, those days I only have to worry about choosing a restaurant, as my place is lined up with many good restaurants. You name the restaurant and you have it kinda scenario.
Since I am fasting, I neither wanted to dine in a restaurant nor wanted to carry out. So if I don’t cook anything I will definitely pass out after 14 hrs of fasting. So to force myself into the kitchen I had to do a little trick, think about all the dishes I would like to have and literally dream about food for a while.
Suddenly one dish that flashed through my mind was Chili paratha or kothu paratha. I used to have this whenever I visited my Aunt, back in India. Even now I recall how we all waited for the sun to set, because only then the restaurant nearby would start making the mincing sound of parathas on hot iron griddles using steel ladles. Somehow they did it in a rhythm and it was definitely a soothing sound for me. And the aroma of this dish would make everyone to make a stop at that restaurant. As soon as we hear this sound we would hurry to get our box of chili paratha.
This is one dish I miss big time here in the US. There is no way I could hear the mincing of paratha and no way I could smell the aroma of this dish either. But who is gonna stop me from making this in my own kitchen. Hence my trick worked, this dish woke my taste buds up and I gracefully entered in to the kitchen with the sole intention of reproducing this dish in my kitchen. I had been having non-veg for five days in a row, so I wanted to make a veggie version of chili paratha. I had all the other ingredients to make the chili paratha, except paratha. Doesn’t this sound funny? Yeah of course, how am I gonna make chili paratha without paratha. I was on the verge of disappointment, when suddenly my eyes caught on the Pita bread placed on the top rack of the refrigerator. I looked at it with one of my eyebrows held up, and without any second thoughts I snatched it. I whispered to myself, how about chili pita, it did sound interesting to me. I don’t know how this idea struck my mind, anyway I immediately fell in love with this idea and hurried into the kitchen to start my chili pita cooking.
We get frozen parathas in Indian stores here, so to whip up chili parathas quickly most of the time we use this. What I found good about the choice of pita, especially if you are using wheat pita is that this is really healthy, it doesn’t have any butter or other fatty stuffs added to it. while cooking, I was really curious about how this dish would taste, to my surprise I didn’t notice any remarkable difference, it tasted just like chili paratha. So this time I felt like a winner, by making a more healthy alternative of chili paratha using Pita bread.
Ingredients:
- Pita bread( white/wheat)- 3
- Cumin seeds-1 tsp
- Onions chopped-2
- Green pepper chopped-1
- Ginger minced-1 tbsp
- Garlic minced-1 tbsp
- Green chili minced-1 tsp
- Tomato chopped-1
- Tomato sauce-1/4 cup
- Soy sauce-2 tbsp
- Cilantro chopped-1 handful
- Lime juice-1 tsp
- salt-2 pinches( as there is salt in soy sauce)
- Oil-2 tbsp
Masalas required:
- Garam masala-1 tsp
- Chili powder-1 tsp
- Coriander powder-1 tsp
- Cumin powder-1/2 tsp
Instruction
- Heat the pita bread on both sides on a skillet. If you prefer you can melt little ghee/butter and heat the pita on it to make it crispy.
- Tear the pita bread into small pieces and keep it aside.
- In a pan, add oil, add the cumin seeds, when it turns light brown, add the onions, saute until translucent, also add little salt to it.
- Add ginger/garlic/green chilies to it and saute till it starts to turn brown.
- Add green pepper and cook for few minutes.
- Add the chopped tomatoes and mash it well.
- Now add all the masalas and give it a good stir.
- Add tomato sauce and soy sauce, when it starts to boil, add the sliced pita bread and mix everything well.
- Towards the end, add lime juice and cilantro. Give it a quick stir and Serve hot on a platter.
- Garnish with cilantro and lime slices.
- Serve with Raita for an extra kick.
Tips:
- You can have the non-veg version of this by adding pre-cooked chicken/beef (cooked with all the masalas) and add it just after cooking the tomatoes.
- You can also add eggs along with the masalas and scramble them.
- You can even increase the spice level by adding more of the chili powder, taste it and add according to your needs.
- It could be even made with leftover Chapathis.
- Pita bread( white/wheat)- 3
- Cumin seeds-1 tsp
- Onions chopped-2
- Green pepper chopped-1
- Ginger minced-1 tbsp
- Garlic minced-1 tbsp
- Green chili minced-1 tsp
- Tomato chopped-1
- Tomato sauce-1/4 cup
- Soy sauce-2 tbsp
- Cilantro chopped-1 handful
- Lime juice-1 tsp
- salt-2 pinches( as there is salt in soy sauce)
- Oil-2 tbsp
- Garam masala-1 tsp
- Chili powder-1 tsp
- Coriander powder-1 tsp
- Cumin powder-1/2 tsp
- Heat the pita bread on both sides on a skillet. If you prefer you can melt little ghee/butter and heat the pita on it to make it crispy.
- Tear the pita bread into small pieces and keep it aside.
- In a pan, add oil, add the cumin seeds, when it turns light brown, add the onions, saute until translucent, also add little salt to it.
- Add ginger/garlic/green chilies to it and saute till it starts to turn brown.
- Add green pepper and cook for few minutes.
- Add the chopped tomatoes and mash it well.
- Now add all the masalas and give it a good stir.
- Add tomato sauce and soy sauce, when it starts to boil, add the sliced pita bread and mix everything well.
- Towards the end, add lime juice and cilantro. Give it a quick stir and Serve hot on a platter.
- Garnish with cilantro and lime slices.
- Serve with Raita for an extra kick.
You can also add eggs along with the masalas and scramble them.
You can even increase the spice level by adding more of the chili powder, taste it and add according to your needs.
It could be even made with leftover Chapathis.
