Archive
Mar 18, 2008

Review: Raya Puff Paratha

I saw this at my a local Asian grocer while looking for Chinese scallion pancakes. It's kind of the same thing but a little different. Puff Paratha is, according to Wikipedia, an Indian flatbread with a texture reminiscent of puff pastry. This particular brand is from Malaysia where I guess that Chinese and Indian culture intermingle as I don't think that "spring onion" is usually found in Puff Paratha but feel free correct me if I'm wrong.


These are conveniently very easy to make. They come in a frozen bag of five flat dough pieces, each about 6 or 7 inches in diameter, (I'm pretty sure it was two or three bucks a bag - edit: it was $1.49) and are conveniently separated by wax paper so they won't stick together. You just take one out of the bag, peel off the wax paper, and throw it on a pan for a couple of minutes on medium to medium high heat (no oil needed!). You can tell when to flip it over when the dough on top no longer looks raw and wet.
And then, flip it over and cook for another 2 minutes and then "voila!" You can also cook it in the oven or any other source of dry heat for that matter (you pyromaniac!), but then you'd have to bother with preheating and it doesn't take that long to cook so it would be a bit of a hassle.
As you can see, it has a nice crisp, flakiness to it that's quite a textural treat. It's quite tasty and has a definite hint of green onion that makes it great on its own or with some soy milk or curry.