Sindhi Koki / Paratha

I am fond of accumulating things and Shibin even more so. I fancy good looking plastic covers, jam/ pickle bottles, yogurt containers, inner cardboard of used tissue rolls,carton boxes and hoard them up. Shibin on the other hand tend to retain old clothes, id cards, travel itineraries, tickets etc. I preserve them to use it up inventively somewhere if possible and he does it because he gets nostalgic seeing all those. Either way, we sometimes end up cluttering and accumulating stuff which we may not ever have a look at again or use ever again. It is recently I came across the concept of de-cluttering and how it helps not just the physical space around the house but our mindset as well. I have slowly begun vanquishing all those unwanted elements.

It seems to be helping me infinitely -

• I have found more space to store what I actually want.
• I found things I would want to put to good use.
• The cleaner the house the merrier the mind.

The same applies to cooking as well. Shibin often tells me - ' Don't try to cook something special always - keep it simple'. My definition of going simple on certain week day night is making Koki. It is a simple sindhi paratha  using the basic ingredients found in almost all Indian household and leaves me with a less messier kitchen. We pair it up with Yogurt, so no extra effort on that side.

I am lucky to have two Sindhi friends and this is the recipe I picked up from one of them who is a wonderful cook  - Shweta thank you for the recipe.

Ingredients

(makes 6 parathas)

1. Wheat Flour - 1 and 1/2 cup
2. Onion - 1 medium finely chopped
3. Tomato - 1 small de-seeded and finely chopped
4. Green Chilly - 1 finely chopped
5. Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
6. Caraway seeds/ ajwain - 1/4 tsp
7. Pomegranate seeds - 1/2 tsp crushed
8. Coriander leaves - a handful chopped
9. Luke warm water - 1/3 cup
10. Oil - 1 tbsp
11. Ghee
12. Salt to taste

Method

• Combine together the chopped onion, tomato, coriander leaves, green chilly, cumin seeds, ajwain and crushed pomegranate seeds in a bowl
• Add wheat flour and salt to the same bowl
• Combine this with your hand to let the moisture from the mix soak into the flour
• Add luke warm water and fork it together and let it rest for 5 minutes before you knead it to form a dough
• Store in an air tight container for 15 minutes before you begin rolling it out. This helps the dough  to be firmer and well combined.
• Make 6 smaller balls and roll it in the flour. Flatten it with your hands and using a roller gently roll out adding more flour if the need be.
• Dust off excess flour and transfer this to a heated tawa.
• Flip it over twice on each of the sides till it begins to brown lightly on the sides.
• Grease both the sides with ghee or oil.
• Serve it with yogurt and pickle.