Grated Potato Paratha made with Truffle Butter
Concept
To create a versatile flatbread incorporating potato and truffles. The idea is to make a flaky layered flat bread following a paratha technique of rolling the dough out thinly, spreading it with truffle butter, rolling it into a log, curling each end back in opposite directions and flattening it together. This is then rolled back into a flatbread and dry-fired.
There are many options for the dough recipe, and they will differ depending on whether I use mashed or grated potato.
I made the first run with mashed potatoes using a basic Farls recipe but omitted the grated potato, decreased the mashed potato and increased the plain flour. I also added cumin seeds as I love them and thought they would work well with the potato and truffle. While this made a nice flatbread, the dough was too soft to hold the layers.
Concept Details
For the first version, I made a flatbread with mashed potato and created the layers using truffle butter mixed with butter. I started with the basic Farls recipe but omitted the grated potato, decreased the mashed potato and increased the plain flour. I also added cumin seeds as I love them and thought they would work well with the potato and truffle.
For this next
version, I want to use only grated potatoes. One of my main concerns was that the potato would quickly oxidise once grated and create grey specks in the finished bread. I also wanted to keep any starch to help crisp the bread. To this end, I changed the recipe to a rub-in method, using butter and oil rubbed into the flour before gating the potato and adding it to boiling water. The grated potato and the water were then added to the flour to form the dough.
Recipe
Two Tubers Grated Potato Paratha made with Truffle Butter
Ingredients
2 cups plain flour
Extra plain flour if the dough is too wet to
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
500 g grated potato (grate when required to avoid browning)
15 g melted butter
2 tbsp Oil
100 ml boiling water
1 tbsp cumin seeds
Freshly cracked black pepper
50 g truffle butter
Method
Place flour in a bowl and add salt and baking powder. Rub in butter, then add oil and rub in until the mixture resembles sand. Set aside while preparing potatoes.
Add cumin seeds to a pan and place on the stove on low heat. Stir occasionally until you can smell the cumin, usually for 1 to 2 minutes.
Peel and grate the potatoes. Put the boiling water in a large jug or bowl to hold the grated potato. Add the grated potato to the boiling water and mix to extract the starch. Add the grated potato and water mix to the flour. Start to bring together and add the toasted cumin. Mix to form a dough, and add more flour or water to bring it together. Turn onto a floured bench and knead until smooth. If it is too sticky, knead in more flour.
Roll the dough into a ball, return it to the bowl, cover it with a tea towel, and rest for twenty minutes.
Shape it into a rough log and cut it in half. Stretch the two halves into a longer log and cut these in half. Roll and stretch these four halves and cut them in half, making eight equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball.
Place one ball on the work surface and roll the dough out to a large round shape, rolling as thinly as possible. Spread lightly with the softened truffle butter and roll up like a snake as tightly as possible. One rolled into a snake, start curling the right end with your right hand down to form a circle. Turn the left end up with your left hand to form a circle. Keep rolling until they meet in the middle. Place one circle on top of the other and press down. Repeat with remaining dough, rest for an hour before the final roll and cook.
Roll each circle out to about dinner plate size. Heat a non-stick frypan with no oil and add the bread. Dry fry on both sides until crispy and slightly browned. Place on a wire rack to cool.
Once cool, you can freeze or refrigerate for cooking later or do the second cook now.
Second Cook
Heat a non-stick fry pan and add a little bit of oil. Place the bread in the pan and cook until heated through, crisp and browned. If the bread is frozen, it is unnecessary to defrost it first. The second cook can be done from frozen.
Video
Conclusion
This made a flaky, chewy potato flatbread with undertones of cumin and truffle. I did need more flour than anticipated to make the dough, which may have made the bread a bit chewy. While this method made great bread, it was a bit harder than I would have liked, and I did miss some of the fluffiness seen in the mashed potato bread.
Future Development
Although this was a robust flatbread, and I definitely created the layers and the flakiness I was trying for, it was a lot chewier in parts. I also missed some of the softness in the first version, which was made with mashed potato. I want to combine the best of both worlds and make a flatbread using mashed and grated potatoes. I liked the idea of using the starch water created by adding the grated potato to the boiled water and then adding this mix to the flour. This also helped the crispness of the bread. I need to work on a recipe incorporating this process with mashed potato.