From Nepalese momos to pizza to noodles, Indian parathas are being reinvented by street food and celebrity chefs
- The multilayered, shallow-fried flatbread is sold from humble street carts to five-star restaurants, served plain or stuffed with fillings
- Innovations by Indian chefs include Calzone parathas shaped like a folded pizza, and in a nod to China, noodle parathas, which are increasingly popular among foodies
When Indian food blogger Amar Sirohi posted a video of a momo-paratha on his YouTube channel Foodie Incarnate last week, it garnered over 200,000 views within minutes. But viewers were polarised over the unusual pairing of the popular shallow-fried Indian flatbread with stuffing traditionally used for Nepalese momos – cabbage, carrot and onions – and served with a spicy chilli sauce.
Similarly, Bangladeshi chef Shihan Chowdhury’s recent recipe for ‘paratha-pizza’ on Twitter garnered 1.5 million views. Chowdhury layered his parathas with tomato sauce, Mozzarella cheese, turkey pepperoni and Thai chilli peppers, leading some netizens to call his dish a ‘travesty’ even as others felt it paid homage to both pizzas and parathas.
“A paratha is broken up as parat plus atta. Parat means layered and atta is flour or dough. Meaning layers of dough,” explains Asha Devi, 58, who has been selling parathas from a roadside cart in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, for 20 years, and offers six varieties of the dish.
While roti is an Indian unleavened flatbread cooked on gas or tandoor without ghee or butter, naan usually has a stuffing of minced meat or vegetables like potato and is baked in the tandoor. Parathas (stuffed, layered or plain) can be shallow fried on griddles with ghee or oil, or baked in the clay tandoor.