My kitchen goes East.. or at least, it tries.

So I made those samosas, and then I found an interesting recipe for Indian chappati bread on a website called Show Me the Curry. The site was made by two Indian women who are busy moms, but wanted to show people how to cook authentic Indian food in simple ways. I particularly like the fact that they add videos for most of the recipes. The videos aren't super-professional, which I like. You can tell you're in someone's real kitchen, and that Anuja and Hetal are friends in real life. More power to them for making a website that's such a resource!

The two recipes I've tried and that have been great are the chappatis (plain flatbreads good with yogurt, or for dipping) and the aloo paratha (uses the chappati dough), which is a potato stuffed flatbread. Be sure not to miss the video down at the bottom of the page.

I'm glad there were videos for them both, as the parathas were a bit difficult for a first-timer to get right. The recipe involves patting out flat circles of dough, placing stuffing in the middle, sealing it like a dumpling, but then flouring it, and actually rolling it flat again with the filling inside. Don't let this daunt you, though! I recommend trying them--we ate our parathas with a lentil dish from Tasty Bite, and they were great. I think with a little practice, this would be a pretty quick meal. I fiddled with the seasonings a bit, and since I don't care for cilantro, I used celery leaves instead, and that worked really nicely.

The only thing I would add for those of us who haven't rolled stuffed dough before is to make sure the stuffing is pretty dry--just moist enough to squeeze into balls. Mine was a bit moister when I first started, and my first paratha exploded when I tried to roll it flat. :( I still got a few leaks on a couple other ones, but all in all, they turned out really delicious and hearty.

They were much less delicate than samosas (though those are delicious in their own right), and I bet the completed parathas freeze well, an would be perfect for lunches and such.