Sudden Indian craving

As I was working last evening, I had a sudden craving for home made parathas.

The first step to cooking at home is preparing your assistant. On my commute home, I talked to Ro about how he could run the mixer and help me cook. I think I had him at mixer, since it usually produced cupcakes.

I grabbed the paratha ingredient list from here:
http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=235317
It only made 8 rather than 16 parathas, since I roll them in the larger (usual Indian) size.

I used frozen methi leaves, about 1/2 cup of the frozen blocks (thawed before adding) for 2 cups of atta. And of course, I used nice durum atta from the Indian store, not the fancy but tough stone ground whole wheat that goes in my breads.

To make it Ro-friendly, I cut out the 4 chilli peppers and used 1/4 tsp of red chilli powder instead. Everything else as written. I used all but 1 tbsp of the water. My general rule of thumb is, half as much water as flour, minus about a tbsp water for each cup.

With Ro measuring out the spices for me, I put all the ingredients in my mixer bowl, oiled the dough hook (to avoid stickiness), forgot to oil the bowl (gah!) and let Ro run it at slow for 1 min, medium (4) for a minute and then a little faster for another minute, adding the water during the second half. While it rested for the prescribed half hour, I made Gujarati kadhi and my own version of chole (garbanzo beans). I also sauteed up some Hannah yams (the sweet potato of my childhood) and served the meal with pickle (gongura and a punjabi mixed veggie pickle). It was a delicious dinner, and for once Ro didn't complain that the Indian food was too spicy.

I felt so pleased with myself. Now that I know how easy making paratha dough is with the mixer, I might have to do this more often.