Today we celebrated Janmashtami / Lord Krishna’s birthday. I know the rest of the country was done with this last month. But we have our own strange calendar which always schedules Janmashtami when no one else does. When we were kids, my brother and I were told that since God had too many places to visit on a single day, he gave us a after appointment in order to be able to spend more time with us rather than a hurried visit. We felt rather special hearing it. Today I found myself giving a similar explanation to my daughter when she wondered why we chose a different day for the festival. Is this how traditions are started?

My dish for today is green peas paratha with paneer. My daughter loves paratha of any kind. In other words, if it is round and topped with ghee it can easily be named paratha and she would eat it. So as any mother would, I manage to stuff all kinds of vegetables in the parathas and she gobbles it up. Peas is not one of her favourites. So parathas are the perfect way for her to get all the protein from the peas. As for me, I seem to have a ‘P’ fixation of some sort. I love Peas, Paneer, Paratha, Pizza, Pasta, Panagam, Pongal, etc. Maybe I will eat all salads if they were renamed as Psalads like Psmith. 

This is the first time I measured out ingredients for the paratha to write this post else I always work on estimation. I have not added green chilies to parathas since it is for my 4 year old. But you can add some to the filling to raise the spice quotient.

Protein – Green peas and Paneer (Cottage Cheese)

Makes 6 medium parathas

WHAT WE NEED

For the dough

Whole wheat flour                     400 gms

Oil                                                   2 tsp

Salt

Water

For the filling

Green peas (fresh or frozen)        1/2 cup

Paneer / Cottage cheese                 150 gms

Red chilly powder                           1/4 tsp

Garam masala                                  1/4 tsp

Fresh coriander                                Few sprigs

Salt

Water

Ghee / clarified butter

WHAT TO DO

• In a large bowl, mix the flour, oil and salt
• Add water to make a soft dough. Set aside for 20 minutes
• Heat 2 cups of water in a vessel and add the green peas
• Cook for 6-8 minutes till it is completely cooked
• Drain the water and set aside the peas
• Grate the paneer and transfer it to a bowl
• Mash the peas nicely and transfer it to the same bowl. If you want you can pulse the peas in a mixer to form a coarse paste
• Finely chop the fresh coriander and add it along with salt, chilly powder and garam masala to the bowl
• Mix all the ingredients for the filling together
• Heat a tava 
• Divide the dough and the filling into 6 parts each
• Roll out one portion of the dough with a rolling pin
• Keep one portion of the filling inside and bring the ends of the rolled out doug together and close it
• Roll it out again carefully to ensure that the dough does not tear and filling does not come out
• Transfer it to the tava and cook on one side
• After a minute, turn it over and let it cook on the other side 
• Once both sides are cooked, take it off the tava and brush it with some ghee
• Repeat the same process with the rest of the dough and filling
• Serve warm with curds or pickle
• Enjoy!

This is my post for the Mega Marathon under the theme, ‘Protein Rich Dishes’.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 80