Mughlai Kheema Paratha

Marinate the finely chopped onions with ½ teaspoon turmeric powder, ½ teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon chili powder. Leave aside for 10 minutes.

Marinate the mutton mince with ½ teaspoon turmeric, 1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon chili powder for 20 minutes.

Knead the all-purpose flour and wheat flour, together with ½ teaspoon salt, 1 Tablespoon of oil, water and milk until a soft, non-sticky dough is made. If it feels sticky, add a little more all-purpose flour and knead again. Keep the dough aside for 5 minutes.

For making the minced meat stuffing, heat the griddle and add 2 Tablespoons of oil. When the oil is hot, add the whole bay leaves, cumin seeds and the whole spices. Let them change their colour to light brown. At that point, add the meat and the coriander and cumin powders and sauté on a medium flame for 5 minutes. Add the garam masala powder and sauté for 10 more minutes. Switch off the gas and add the lime juice and mix well. This forms the meat stuffing.

Now, take out a palm-sized ball of dough and roll it into a big, thin circle: the thinner, the better! This is the paratha base.

Heat another griddle over medium heat and add 2 Tablespoons of ghee. Let it smoke. Now slide the paratha dough circles slowly into this, so that the edges do not fold. The heat should be medium. Flip the paratha after 1 minutes, lower the flame and add 3 Tablespoons of the cooked minced meat stuffing. Spread it out a little, but don’t spread all the way to the edges. Add two eggs (that have been whisked with ¼ teaspoon of salt) on top of the meat. Add half each of the marinated onions and the chopped chilies and spread over again. It’s important that you add the stuffing ingredients quickly, otherwise the paratha base will become crisp, making it hard for you to work with afterwards.

After 1 minute, fold the circular paratha in half once, then fold it in half again, in order to get a triangular shape (four directions for a square), pressing each fold for 5 seconds, so that the fold gets sealed with the (still raw) egg underneath. Increase the flame at this stage to medium and cook for 2 minutes and then revert back to a low flame. Low flame is important, so that the egg gets cooked to perfection and the paratha is super-crisp!

After 7 minutes total, flip the whole paratha very carefully using two spoons, one placed above and the other below. Continue cooking at low flame for 5 minutes longer. Now increase the flame to medium for 2 minutes, pressing the paratha softly from the top. Reduce the flame again and continue to cook for 5 more minutes, pressing the paratha down with the kitchen spoon. Then remove from the pan and continue with the remaining paratha dough circles and filling.

This can be served with chutney, pickles, yogurt or simple tomato-chili sauce!