Lachchha paratha with karela leaves (layered paratha with bitter gourd leaf)

• Servings: 4-5
• Preparation time: 2 minutes.
• Preparing dough time: 5 minutes.
• Rolling time: 1 minute (each)
• Roasting time: 2 minutes (each).
• Total time: 10 minutes.

One weekend at late night we were planning to trip to second largest city of Japan ‘Yokohama’; generally we carry our lunch because proper vegetarian lunch is not available in Japanese restaurant. In the early morning, we decided to prepare ‘lachchha paratha with bitter gourd leaf’ for lunch.

Bitter gourd leaf was available in our balcony pot; very easily and fast growing creeper in summer at Japan. My husband sows this vegetable by hobby and wants to maintain beautiful greenery; fortunately it grew very healthy creeper; to see that much verdant green and healthy plants leaves, I was planning to prepare paratha since many days.

I prepared lachchha paratha… OMG it came so tasty… there are no words to explain the taste.

When I told this to my son; he told me Mummy, types of recipe you prepare there in Japan, we never thought of…

Bitter gourd leaves have full of medicinal value; it controls the blood sugar level, reduces the risk of cancer, it helps to removes body bacteria, fungal or virus infections.

Paratha is my favorite travelling meal, although there are so many vegetarian options available near eki (station) at Yokohama, but homemade… must try the recipe and write to me…

Ingredients:

• Aata (wheat flour): 2 cup
• Dry Aata: ½ cup (for rolling)
• Bitter gourd leaves: 50 gm
• Ghee (clarified butter): 2 teaspoon (for moin that is put it into dough itself)
• Ajwain: ½ teaspoon
• Fennel seed: ½ teaspoon
• Kalongi (Nigella seed): ½ teaspoon
• Salt: 1 teaspoon
• Ghee (clarified butter): 100 gm (to be used during roasting paratha).

Preparation:

1. Chop bitter gourd leaves, keep aside.
2. Take a wide vessel; put Aata, chopped bitter gourd leaves, ghee, Ajwain, fennel seed, Kalongi and salt. Mix well by rubbing between palms, add water in small quantity and knead them till the dough becomes soft (The dough can be made in food processor also) Cover and Keep aside, to be used after 10-20 minutes.

Method:

1. Divide dough into 8-10 parts and make balls; Roll the ball in 5-6 inch diameter circle; place 1 tablespoon of ghee all around the circle, sprinkle little Aata over ghee, make 1/3” wide strips like pleat with the help of two fingers and thumb as shown in photo.
2. Slightly pull the pleats; again roll it in circular way like Swiss roll as shown in photo. Prepare all as above in advance, so that it will be easy to roll one by one at roasting time
3. Roll this prepared Swiss roll with greased rolling pin evenly. Now layered (lachchha) raw paratha is ready as shown in photo.

Roasting the paratha:

1. Take a Tawa (griddle), when it becomes hot; reduce the flame to medium. Place the rolled paratha on this. Cook for few seconds till it changes the colour.
2. Turn the other side and cook it by pressing gently by spatula; apply some ghee and turn it, cook both sides by applying ghee as well as pressing it lightly.
3. After roasting 2-3 paratha crush the paratha lightly with both hands so that layers of paratha become visible.
4. Now it is ready to serve; good to prepare lunch box or carry as a travel meal with red chilli pickle.

Lachchha paratha with karela leaves (layered paratha with bitter gourd leaf) by Nag Ratna Sahu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.