Alu Paratha

The boys and I have been studying the country of India for several weeks now. Fascinating! We’ve all learned a lot…me  most of all.

One thing that has been a good lesson for all of us is the fact that there are so many people who want to live in the cities to get a job (not that there are enough jobs)…that there is not nearly enough housing…and so tons of people will live in one tiny apartment…and sometimes it is just too crowded and someone has to go sleep outside. 

So I’m reading this information to the kids while we sit in our kitchen, which is probably the SIZE of some of the apartments in India, and looking around at the rest of my house, which is probably the size of the country of India (not really, but I DO have a very big house) (for which I am thankful) (even when I have to clean it). 

So, that is your social studies lesson for today…and I hope you gained an appreciation for the size of your home and the fact that you can read and have enough food to eat and that you don’t have to sleep outside when we don’t have enough room for you in the house because we are packed in here nose to nose like a bunch of sardines. (Oh, sorry. I forgot I was not talking to my kids. Sorry ’bout that.)

(“Mama, what’s a sardine?”)

Okay, so ANYWAY…one of Asa’s assignments this week was to make an Indian dish. He looked some up online and found one here. He chose to make something called:  Alu Paratha which is kind of like a tortilla (although just flour and water) with mashed potatoes with spices inside. 

It was a bit time consuming to make, but not toooo bad and Asa did awesome making them. He had to peel potatoes, cook them, mash them and put spices in, knead the dough, roll out the dough, plop some potatoes inside, flatten them out a bit and seal ’em up, then fry them in butter. 

Daddy got home for lunch just as Asa was finishing! Perfect! (Of course, it always happens this way…I am pulling a beautiful lunch from the oven just as my darling husband walks in the door, and so he is greeted by my perfect hair and smile and the aroma of the wonderful meal that awaits him…)

So, we had Asa’s Alu Paratha for lunch and they were delish! 

Now, I have to admit that there were a few of the spices that I didn’t have in my cupboard…and I wasn’t able to make a quick trip to the store for them, nor was I able to make a quick trip to India for them…so we settled on just leaving them out and using what we did have.

So, it probably wasn’t a true Alu Paratha. And also, when it said to put the potatoes into the bready part and then flatten it…I just wasn’t sure how to instruct him to do that without potatoes squishing out and getting all over the rolling pin, so we just sort of pushed them down a little with our hands to flatten them. 

I’m pretty sure women all over India were rolling with laughter yesterday at me when I was telling him, “See Asa, you do it like this.”

Yes, those Indian women were saying, “Girlfriend, that is SO not a Alu Paratha…” (tehehehe)

That’s okay, they can laugh. We had fun and enjoyed trying something new! 

Wonder what country we’re supposed to study next?!

P.S. Now, I know you’re all thinking, “Huh. Here she is trying to sell us this Funky Kitchen book on how to keep an organized and functional kitchen…just look at the background in all those pictures she just posted. Dirty dishes everywhere. Huh.”

 (And you’d be right, I do need to do a few dishes.)  Hey, we dirty up a lot of dishes at our house. And I was helping to educate my child and allow him to create a native dish from the country of India so that he might have a heightened awareness of the cultures around him….

(I know what you’re doing, by the way. You didn’t even notice the dirty dishes before since you were really just noticing the fine strapping young lad in the pictures…and now you’re all going back to look at the dirty dishes in the background. Yeah, I’m on to you..)