Afghanistan - I had such high hopes!
Yes, yes, yes, I know this post is late. I did actually make and eat these pancakes on March 18; however, I'm sure everyone can relate when I say sometimes life just gets in the way of things we truly want to do.
So this time I did the research to find a pancake for Afghanistan, and I must say that it definitely did take some research. First I used the search term "Afghanistan pancakes", thinking that Google would definitely pull something up. Wrong! Then I used Bing, and I still did not have any success. So I changed my search term to Afghanistan cuisine. From this point, I decided to search for images of Afghanistan cuisine since I had no idea what the foods were based on their Afghan name. See, I can use my brain and think outside the box when necessary.
I started sifting through images on the Internet, and for awhile the closest thing I found to a pancake was naan. I consider naan more of a bread than a pancake, so I began to get frustrated at my lack of progress towards finding a pancake from Afghanistan. Eventually I ran across a wonderful blog from a writer named Humaira called Afghan Culture Revealed, and it was here that I discovered something called a bolani. I thought it looked close to what I might consider a pancake. It looked sort of crepe like with filling in it. However, upon further research, I concluded that a bolani is really more like an empanada. Darn! However, I do plan on making bolani for a meal one day soon, as well as several of the other recipes I discovered on Humaira's blog.
Back to square one, I started perusing images again. After another 5-10 minutes without success, I decided to search for videos. I once again reverted back to my original search term of Afghanistan pancakes. Success at last! I found this you tube video that at last gave me a name for Afghan pancakes, parata. Now I had a term to use in a search for a recipe. Before beginning another search, I decided to watch the video, and as I did, trepidation began to set in. The trepidation was a result of seeing that Afghan pancakes begin in much the same way as making a tortilla, something at which I haven't had much success at in the last 6 years despite much effort put that way.
After watching the video and with fear in my heart, I began searching out parata recipes because I was in the mood for a savory pancake as well as the sweet pancake recipe from the video. It was at this point I ran across a savory parata recipe from one of my favorite Indian chefs, Sanjay Thumma. He posts videos showing how to make Indian cuisine on his website, which for me at least, makes it much easier to understand how to cook food from cultures I'm unfamiliar with. You must be thinking at this point that Indian food is not Afghanistan food, so if I use this recipe it doesn't count for Afghanistan. However, the two countries do have a lot of overlap in culture and foods, so I elected to use the recipe from Thumma as our savory pancake, and then I would use the one from Haley in the you tube video to make a sweet Afghan pancake.
So, here it goes. We'll start with the sweet pancake. First for the recipe:
So I must say I didn't have much hope for the taste of this, especially since it doesn't look at all like the parata in the you tube video. I tried it anyway, hoping for the best. It didn't taste the way it looked in the video, it was mostly very bland. I'm sure it was because of some error I made in the process. If you want to try this recipe, I recommend taking a look at the you tube video, and hopefully you'll have more success than I did. The images of this in the you tube video look fantastic!
Now on to the savory paratas. For the recipe, go to Sanjay Thumma's website directly. The recipe is there, along with the video for making them (http://www.vahrehvah.com/popvideo.php?recipe_id=1705). I pretty much followed his recipe exactly, with a couple of minor tweaks to make them vegetarian for me. Anyway, I substituted frozen vegetable ground soy for the beef, and I ommited the green chilies to take some of the heat out. Here are the results for the savory paratas:
It looks a lot like real meat!
So far, so good. It still looks like what I saw in the video.
Still looking good!
Hmmmm . . . not quite like the video, but it could just be that I have difficulty rolling things out evenly.
A piece of the end result.
So the savory version was much more flavorful than the sweet version, but the texture was still off on this. My end result barely resembled that in Thumma's video; and while mine was edible, it wasn't something I desired to continue eating. I'm POSITIVE that these two recipes didn't turn out because of something I did. I think I let my fear of making tortilla like foods get the best of me. Since I was now filled with so much despair from my continued lack of success with this type of food, what was I to do with all of the leftover filling from this recipe? I was still hungry, and I didn't want to attempt to make any more of these. Well, I went over to the freezer to have a look at what was in there. I discovered some frozen pasty sheets. After 20 minutes of defrosting, I finally ended up with this:
An empanada like food filled with the filling from Thumma's recipe. Yummy! Success (at least success for something edible) at last! One of these days, I will be successful at the recipe in the way it is supposed to be, Afghan Sunday just wasn't to be that day.
So this time I did the research to find a pancake for Afghanistan, and I must say that it definitely did take some research. First I used the search term "Afghanistan pancakes", thinking that Google would definitely pull something up. Wrong! Then I used Bing, and I still did not have any success. So I changed my search term to Afghanistan cuisine. From this point, I decided to search for images of Afghanistan cuisine since I had no idea what the foods were based on their Afghan name. See, I can use my brain and think outside the box when necessary.
I started sifting through images on the Internet, and for awhile the closest thing I found to a pancake was naan. I consider naan more of a bread than a pancake, so I began to get frustrated at my lack of progress towards finding a pancake from Afghanistan. Eventually I ran across a wonderful blog from a writer named Humaira called Afghan Culture Revealed, and it was here that I discovered something called a bolani. I thought it looked close to what I might consider a pancake. It looked sort of crepe like with filling in it. However, upon further research, I concluded that a bolani is really more like an empanada. Darn! However, I do plan on making bolani for a meal one day soon, as well as several of the other recipes I discovered on Humaira's blog.
Back to square one, I started perusing images again. After another 5-10 minutes without success, I decided to search for videos. I once again reverted back to my original search term of Afghanistan pancakes. Success at last! I found this you tube video that at last gave me a name for Afghan pancakes, parata. Now I had a term to use in a search for a recipe. Before beginning another search, I decided to watch the video, and as I did, trepidation began to set in. The trepidation was a result of seeing that Afghan pancakes begin in much the same way as making a tortilla, something at which I haven't had much success at in the last 6 years despite much effort put that way.
After watching the video and with fear in my heart, I began searching out parata recipes because I was in the mood for a savory pancake as well as the sweet pancake recipe from the video. It was at this point I ran across a savory parata recipe from one of my favorite Indian chefs, Sanjay Thumma. He posts videos showing how to make Indian cuisine on his website, which for me at least, makes it much easier to understand how to cook food from cultures I'm unfamiliar with. You must be thinking at this point that Indian food is not Afghanistan food, so if I use this recipe it doesn't count for Afghanistan. However, the two countries do have a lot of overlap in culture and foods, so I elected to use the recipe from Thumma as our savory pancake, and then I would use the one from Haley in the you tube video to make a sweet Afghan pancake.
So, here it goes. We'll start with the sweet pancake. First for the recipe:
Ingredients
FILLING
· 1/4 Cup sugar
· 3 Tbsp cardamom
· 2 Tbsp sesame oil
PARATA
· 2 Cups Flour (All-Purpose works best)
· 1 Cup Water
· 1 Tbsp sesame oil
· **for cooking:
· 2 Tbsp sesame oil
TOPPING
Powdered Sugar
Directions
FILLING
Mix sugar and cardamom together and set aside. I actually used a chai blend seasoning that I had in the cabinet because I couldn't find my ground cardamom.
PARATA
1. Mix flour, water, and oil together and knead to form a dough ball
2. Set dough aside for 10 minutes
3. After 10 minutes have passed, separate the dough into two balls
4. Roll one ball in your hands until if forms a snake like shape 12 in. long
5. Flatten with fingers or a rolling pin until it is 3 in. wide by 12 in. long
6. Repeat with other ball and lay one above the other on the table.
7. Using 1 tbsp cooking oil for each piece of dough, apply and rub the oil on both pieces of dough down the center leaving a 1/4 in. gap around the edges
8. Sprinkle a generous amount of the sugar/cardamom mixture over the oil.
9. Starting from the end, roll the strip of dough over the filling until it forms a tube
10. Cut the tube of dough in half (makes 2 paratas)
11. Place the cut edge on the cutting board and press it down flat into the table
12. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a 5 in. by 5 in. circle
13. REPEAT all steps on the rest of the dough to form 4 paratas
COOKING PARATAS
1. Add 2 Tbsp of Cooking oil to a large pre-heated pan or griddle
2. Lay two paratas onto the pan
3. Cook both sides until golden brown
4. Once browned, move the paratas to a serving plate
5. Sprinkle with Powdered Sugar
Here are some pictures I took along the way:
I know, I know, this does not look like a 5 inch circle. Did I mention I sort of suck at rolling things out into circles?
So I must say I didn't have much hope for the taste of this, especially since it doesn't look at all like the parata in the you tube video. I tried it anyway, hoping for the best. It didn't taste the way it looked in the video, it was mostly very bland. I'm sure it was because of some error I made in the process. If you want to try this recipe, I recommend taking a look at the you tube video, and hopefully you'll have more success than I did. The images of this in the you tube video look fantastic!
Now on to the savory paratas. For the recipe, go to Sanjay Thumma's website directly. The recipe is there, along with the video for making them (http://www.vahrehvah.com/popvideo.php?recipe_id=1705). I pretty much followed his recipe exactly, with a couple of minor tweaks to make them vegetarian for me. Anyway, I substituted frozen vegetable ground soy for the beef, and I ommited the green chilies to take some of the heat out. Here are the results for the savory paratas:
It looks a lot like real meat!
So far, so good. It still looks like what I saw in the video.
Still looking good!
Hmmmm . . . not quite like the video, but it could just be that I have difficulty rolling things out evenly.
A piece of the end result.
So the savory version was much more flavorful than the sweet version, but the texture was still off on this. My end result barely resembled that in Thumma's video; and while mine was edible, it wasn't something I desired to continue eating. I'm POSITIVE that these two recipes didn't turn out because of something I did. I think I let my fear of making tortilla like foods get the best of me. Since I was now filled with so much despair from my continued lack of success with this type of food, what was I to do with all of the leftover filling from this recipe? I was still hungry, and I didn't want to attempt to make any more of these. Well, I went over to the freezer to have a look at what was in there. I discovered some frozen pasty sheets. After 20 minutes of defrosting, I finally ended up with this:
An empanada like food filled with the filling from Thumma's recipe. Yummy! Success (at least success for something edible) at last! One of these days, I will be successful at the recipe in the way it is supposed to be, Afghan Sunday just wasn't to be that day.
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