1001 Paratha Pizzas

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When my 6 year old nephew K insisted he’ll have nothing but pizza for dinner, and I had no pizza dough ready, I just topped a parota with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and baked it. He loved it, though he later casually remarked that he  liked the Indian pizza that I made ( you can’t fool kids !) . I was surprised to see the same offered in Hotel Chendur on Greams road. Actually, paratha pizzas are easier to make and infinitely variable. With hundreds of parathas being cooked across India, a paratha pizza makes great sense. It could be a nice fusion food, with mozzarella cheese alone being a ‘novel’ addition. 

What is pizza anyway ? A flatbread topped with cheese, sauce, toppings  and baked. A variety of flatbreads can be used as a pizza base. All these are leavened ( using yeast / baking powder), because a thick unleavened bread  will be tough and chewy . Parathas are not leavened – traditional Indian cuisine uses neither yeast nor baking powder. Instaed it invented its own technique to make a thick bread edible – by layering it like a puff pastry or by stuffing it with a variety of goodies. This unique invention led to an array of thick but soft flatbreads – the parathas. 

So instead of using a leavened flatbread as a pizza base, we here use a range of parathas. These are quicker to make, infinitely variable and are familiar to Indians. And they do taste bloody delicious. 

The change I’ve made in the recipe is not to use oil while cooking the parathas so that they remain dry and not oily.

Perfect for this cold weather, warm and cozy and fits in perfectly with Pallavi's Sunday Snacks event. It also fits in well with Sindhura's Bread Mania event.