A Hug Goodbye
For my last blog post for some time, I wanted to go back to the beginning.
In a few days I am starting my freshman year of college. Meaning that next month I will be in a different state, hours away from home, and without access to our kitchen. Much as I want to cook and create, it will be impossible for me to do so. So I am taking a break from my blog for some time.
In the throes of packing, saying goodbye to family and hometown friends, and getting ready to call my college dorm my home for the next four years I have grown homesick for the warm parautha my grandmother Maji holds so dear to her heart.
Although I haven't called Maji's house home in over a decade the taste of her cooking will always beckons me. Although memories of my early childhood in Nepal are starting to fade with age and distance, as my grandmother’s dim with age and Alzheimer's, Maji’s parautha is a shared comfort food. My grandmother loves parautha. So much so that it is an enduring topic of conversation in the family. Every time I ask her what she’s eating for dinner, her response is “Paurautha”.
Parautha
Parautha is made up of two parts — the outer dough shell, and the interior potato filling. I decided to make aloo parautha or potato parautha. The dough recipe is simple — with only three ingredients: flour, salt, and water. I mixed these three in a bowl, kneaded the dough, covered it, and let it rest for a bit.
Meanwhile, I prepared the filling. I had been boiling potatoes. I removed them from the pot and let them cool until I could comfortaly peel them. I like to incorporate some freshness into my cooking by cutting up the ingredients right before mixing. I mashed the peeled potatoes, diced up the red onion and cilantro and mixed them all together. I then added turmeric and salt to the mixture. The filling was ready for use.
The dough had rested for some time and looked soft and pliant. I divided it into four smaller dough balls and created four portions of filling for them. I rolled the dough balls out so they lay flat and then plopped the balls of filling in the middle of each, wrapping them up with the dough surrounding them so they resembled Xiaolongbao dumplings. I then took out the roller again and rolled these balls into flat pancakes, using flour to make sure they did not stick to the rolling surface. The parautha was ready for the pan.
I poured some ghee onto a hot pan and smacked down the parauthas one by one onto the pan, letting them develop brown spots on each side before removing them from heat.
Mint Achaar
One of my favorite aspects of home cooking is the accessibility to garden-fresh ingredients. My parents have a small potted herb garden on our patio. I am lucky to be able to take advantage of this in my cooking. It’s populated with the likes of parsley, basil, rosemary, lavender, thyme, chives, oregano, thyme and cilantro. I find that using fresh-cut herbs adds an extra boost of flavor. I picked a handful of cilantro, and mint and a green pepper from our garden.
I roughly chopped the ingredients and put them in a blender with freshly-sqeezed lemon juice. From there the achaar was pretty easy to make, I just had to press a few buttons to power the machine and viola! it was ready to be enjoyed.
Taste
The brownish-green achaar added a kick of flavor and spice which paired with the simple parautha wonderfully. It felt warm and comforting and so so good.
Maybe the reason parautha feels like a warm hug is because of its internal makeup. The warm dough exterior embraces the simple yet flavorful potato filling. The taste wraps around your heart. Each bite took me back to Maji’s comforting arms. I could almost smell her classic perfume, touch her soft wrinkled skin, hear her rich voice and feel her love surrounding me.
