Nostalgic trip of Dhakai Paratha
Does Dhakai paratha remind you of Bangladesh? Or your college street days and the road-side eateries around colleges that served this multi-layered super-crispy deep fried hollow bread? Once upon a time, Kolkata’s winter breakfast was incomplete without a Dhakai Paratha, specially in North Kolkata, it was a famous takeaway. The parathas used to be fried daily, early in the morning in almost all local parar tele-bhaja (Bengali fritters) shops. The steaming parathas would be served either with chholar dal or alur torkari. However, of late, this item has almost vanished, may be because GenX and GenY feel they are ‘unhealthy’, though they do not mind going for a pizza or a burger!
It is generally believed that Dhakai paratha originated in Dhaka and came to Kolkata from there. This could be true after all, because paratha is apparently a big part of the Dhaka street food culture.So this winter, we share this simple recipe of Dhakai paratha that you can even make at home!
INGREDIENTS
8 cups maida or all-purpose flour
8 tbspghee or clarified butter
Salt to taste
Oil to deep fry
Method:
• Knead a soft and pliable dough using flour, salt, oil, and water. Rest the dough for 20 mins.
• Make dough balls from the prepared dough. Roll the dough into a 8 cm circle.
• Apply ghee on the surface and sprinkle with dry flour. (This process will enable the layers to be visible once the paratha is fried later)
• Make an incision from the center of the circle till the edge.
• Start rolling from one cut edge till the end. This will help to form a cone. Flatten the cone from both ends and brush oil and let them rest for 30 minutes. Now roll it out again till 6 cm in diameter.
• Deep fry in hot oil till golden and crispy.
• Dhakai paratha is served best with cholar daal (lentil)
