Before the oats, cereals,
muffins, pastries and sandwiches made their appearances at our breakfast table,
Parathas, Puri, and rice ruled the kitchens. Early mornings, tea or coffee was paired with home cooked meals.
There was a great
variety of paratha made with most inovative fillings, sometimes stuffed with
potatoes, sometimes with radish, then, there were cauliflower, cottage cheese, peas
and sometimes even fenugreek. There were great varieties of puris too. From plain
salt and pepper to more elaborate puris that were stuffed with colorful lentils. Curds, pickle and papads were
included with puris and parathas.
But I enjoyed Parathas the most, especially those of potatoes mixed with coriander leaves, green chilies and
cumin seeds.
Parathas are basically
unleavened dough stuffed with spiced mixture of mashed potatoes/vegetables, which is rolled
out and cooked on hot plate with butter. Paired with pickle or curd and a hot
cup of tea, it made a perfect Sunday morning.
Puri on the other hand
is the unleavened dough usually prepared with wheat flour (atta) or refined
wheat flour (maida) or coarse wheat flour (sooji), deep-fried in hot oil till
they bloat like a balloon. They can be paired with lentils, or potatoes or
pickle and sometimes even with sweets like halwa or jalebi.
In my house, Loli was
regularly made. This was made with wheat flour where little ghee/or butter was
added before kneading, plain loli had only salt and pepper, while masala loli
had finely chopped onions, coriander leaves, pomegranate seeds and chilies.
This too tasted great with pickles, papads or curds, but I would enjoy it best
with fried eggs, (sunny side up) or sometimes with mutton cooked in spinach and
tomatoes.
Pakwan was another
great delight where the dough was rolled paper-thin and deep-fried. This was
relished with lentils and fried papads.
Nowadays we are too
health conscious and will avoid fried stuff out right. Now I see youngsters
skipping breakfast or relishing baked crisps of rolled oats stuffed with nuts,
honey, raisins, flaxseeds, etc. I too prefer a glass of fresh juice in the mornings.
Cooked meal early morning is never preferred by
today’s youth. Wonder if they know the taste of leftover food that was revamped
into different dish the next morning.
Leftover Chappatis were
cooked in green masala of coriander leaves, garlic and tomatoes to make a dish
called 'Mani seyal'.
Rice was fried into
yellow rice by adding garlic, mustard seeds, tomatoes, onions, coriander
leaves, green chilies and turmeric powder.
While German households
had salami, bacon, ham, eggs and varieties of cheese, French German rolls
paired with jam, marmalade, honey. In my house, on the other hand, it was
simple dried leftover bread cooked with onion, tomatoes, green chilies and coriander
leaves called 'Daboroti seyal'. It tasted heavenly with a hot cup of filter coffee.
In Spain, no matter
where I went, at every breakfast restaurant was tortilla Esponola. But in my
house, we had delicious omelets of onions, coriander leaves and tomatoes, even
a simple omelet with just salt and pepper tasted great. Sometimes we had leftover
rotis dipped in egg and fried on skillet.
A typical Italian
breakfast is made of hot beverages and something sweet to eat like croissant,
pastries, cookies and maybe some fresh juice too, but in my house there was
thin sweet vermicelli called ‘Sayoon’ cooked with sugar and cardamom.
Every country that I
travelled, I saw people relishing different breakfast but there was always
similarity between their food and ours to some extend, especially if they were
cooked or fried.
Some years ago, One early morning, in
Hongkong, it was 5am and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I decided to take a bus
to far off busstop and enjoy the breakfast. I still remember the beautiful taste
of Congee I had on the street. The congee is a simple rice broth that contained
pieces of chicken and some deep fried shrimps. I had seasoned it with vinegars
in chilies and some soy sauce. In my house congee is also made but we just add
crackled mustard seeds and we called it ‘Kweerni Khichdi’ I love this with sour
curd and deep fried papad.
Breakfast is the
important meal of the day, but now I shudder to eat fried food, bread and
potatoes is too much carb, chappatis and puris are too heavy, so I have reduced
my diet to just one glass of fresh vegetable juice with a simple toast or
cookie. Lunch is when I will eat heavy food and dinner is just soup and fruits
and sometimes if the mood is right, will eat the breakfast selection of parathas,
puri or rice..during dinner time….
Our elders would eat
four heavy meals to survive, and they had no diet issues, I just cannot eat so
much, but then, I don’t work physically that hard like my granny or other women
in my family used to do…
Here is sharing a leaflet from my book on #SindhiCuisine…..
Patatey ji manni
(Potato Paratha)
Serves 4
Ingredients
2 potatoes, boiled
3 cups wheat flour
2 tablespoon oil
Salt to taste
½ teaspoon cumin powder
½ teaspoon red chilly powder
1 tablespoon onion, finely chopped
2 green chillies, finely chopped
1 tablespoon coriander leaves, chopped
Method
- Mash the boiled potato and add salt, cumin powder, red chilly
powder, onions, green chillies and coriander leaves. Keep aside.
- Knead the dough for paratha adding salt and 1 tablespoons of
oil to the wheat flour.
- Roll it on a floured board to about 2 inch circle. Put 2
tablespoon of potato filling in the center and gently pick up the sides,
press together to form a ball, covering the filling completely.
- Roll out carefully into round paratha, cook on tava on a medium
flame till light brown, using small quantities of oil.
- Serve with curd and papad.
