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Bon Appétit joins Chef Meherwan Irani in Delhi to visit Sardar Ji Parathe Wale, a legendary three-generation paratha stall. For over 50 years, this stall has been serving buttery, flaky parathas to hungry office workers as they finish their days. These stuffed flatbreads are packed with flavor and fried with ghee, making them one of India’s most popular street foods.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:05I'm salivating right now. It's evening in Delhi. Hundreds of people are streaming out of their
00:09offices hungry and for 40 years Sardarji Parate Wale has been serving beautiful hot buttery
00:16lakey parathas up to all these hungry people lining the streets. A paratha is essentially a
00:22flatbread, a stuffed flatbread but the magic is in the butteriness of it. It's a meal-in-one,
00:27it's a snack, it's comfort food. Let's go see what's going on. Uncle Ji, how are you?
00:32What are you doing today?
00:34We're parathes.
00:35What are you doing, parathes?
00:37Careful, this is a live operation. Don't knock over a propane tank or we're all in trouble.
00:42Ah, just the smell is incredible. How long have you done this?
00:45I've done it for 50 years.
00:48This is a three-generation family business. When he was about 10 to 12 years old he used to help
00:52his dad out.
00:53Just like his son, happy right now is helping out and expediting.
00:56Once his father passed away, he took over the seat and now he sits here in the same place that
01:01his father sat.
01:01He's got one, two, three, four bowls of stuffings.
01:05Alu?
01:10Okay, and this way you get a little bit of all the flavors all incorporated into it.
01:14Lots of fresh onion and you can see just the mountain that's been cut back there and piled up in
01:19the bags ready for the next order.
01:20The cutting board is basically two by four.
01:24That's been worked over so that you can actually see where it's sort of got hollowed out in the middle
01:28a little bit.
01:29Here we go.
01:29There's the cutting board.
01:31Somewhere there's a fence missing a post and it'll be back here.
01:33But the magic is in what's happening right now.
01:36Let's see him go. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go.
01:40Made into a ball, dusted in flour, hollowed out, little stuffing the inside.
01:47It's moving so fast I can barely keep track of what he's doing.
01:51And then rolled out without tearing the dough.
01:5540 years of practice, right? This is how it looks.
01:58And straight on the grill.
01:59I mean what's blowing my mind is that he's putting in jagged bits of onions and potatoes.
02:04Stuff that if I try to do at home would just tear right through the paratha.
02:07Obviously with the technique that he's got going, these parathas are not tearing.
02:11The ingredients are not poking through and bursting.
02:13So he's grabbing a handful of dough.
02:14Looks about just somewhere between a golf ball and a tennis ball in size.
02:19He's really almost massaging it in his hands to get it super smooth.
02:23A liberal dusting of the flour.
02:24And then in this just really amazing sort of movement, he's hollowing it out.
02:31Stuffing it.
02:32Pinching off a little bit of the extra on the top.
02:34You can see the part that he pinched off.
02:36And then he's got probably the amount of pressure that he needs to make this paratha down to an arc
02:41form.
02:41By stuffing it in the middle and then enclosing it and pushing it down and rolling it out.
02:46He's making sure that the stuffing spreads perfectly even.
02:48So that all the way to the edge, the potato stuffing fills that paratha, you know, in that thin little
02:54disc.
02:54This is nothing like a crepe or a pancake with toppings.
02:57He's not making something and then just sprinkling stuff and folding it over.
03:00But it's essential to the nature of the paratha is that the stuffing's inside and that it's flattened to this
03:05disc and cooked.
03:06Ghee, clarified butter.
03:07It's got a very high smoke point.
03:09And you can see how hot the tawa is.
03:12Butter would scorch on this, which is why they're using ghee.
03:14The smoke point of this is extremely high. You're not going to burn it.
03:17They don't skimp on the ghee.
03:19It's sort of partly griddling, partly frying.
03:22I mean, think of, you know, pancakes with butter on a flat top.
03:25Just think of how the butter helps the pancake just become golden and fluffy and crispy.
03:30And yet it's not greasy.
03:31So he's making sure that it doesn't burn either side.
03:33It's cooking perfectly.
03:34This is so hot.
03:35Once the internal temperature gets to the right temperature, it starts puffing.
03:39And what he's doing by pressing is essentially helping create the air pockets inside from one side to the other.
03:46And it'll start to puff up slowly.
03:47From the rolling to a paratha hitting that plate, I'm estimating about a minute, 10 seconds.
03:58Refuses to count.
03:59He doesn't have time to count.
04:00He doesn't have time to count.
04:02It's just happening.
04:03But we can estimate.
04:04We can take a guess.
04:05We can just take a guess based on what time he starts and what time he finishes at a paratha.
04:09About a minute going out.
04:10Look at the puff.
04:11Look at the puff.
04:14And that's what the pressing on the sides does.
04:17Forces the air into the middle.
04:18And that steam, that pocket on the inside is making sure that the stuffing is perfectly cooked and moist and
04:25delicious.
04:25The top burners are cast iron.
04:28I mean, he's probably cranking 150, 200,000 BTUs per burner.
04:33I mean, it is insane.
04:34I know I'm exaggerating a little bit.
04:36It's the same reason why pizza cooked in a 900 degree oven.
04:39It's got that butteriness to it, that softness to it, that chew.
04:42Because the dough is cooked in about 90 seconds.
04:44So you've got the dough cooked, but while it's still retaining its pliability.
04:47I am so envious, so jealous of cooking in the streets of India.
04:50I mean, you've got a propane tank in the middle of the street.
04:52These tables look like, you know, they're about one bump away from collapsing.
04:56This rolling block of his, made out of marble, is balanced on just some wadded up newspaper over there.
05:02But probably at the perfect angle for him to work.
05:04The rolling pin rests perfectly on the top.
05:06It's about economy of motion.
05:08It's about economy of placement.
05:10It's about essentially everything being within arm's reach and keeping it compact.
05:16I often argue that our American kitchens, professional kitchens, are too big.
05:19They're just too big.
05:20There's too much movement back and forth.
05:22If you could just stand in one place and rotate and reach everything you need,
05:25that's essentially what street cooking looks like.
05:28You know, without worrying about regulations, fire safety drills.
05:34On this little phone here, it's streaming a live feed from the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
05:39One of the holiest sites for Sikhism.
05:41This is their why.
05:42This is their purpose.
05:44He rolled the incense by himself by hand in the morning.
05:46But of course, the take-out ordering is announcing right next to it.
05:50So, you know, religion, commerce.
05:52I mean, you can do both, right?
05:53So, let's go around this side.
05:55Let's make- what all do we have in here?
05:58It's mixed-chart, sir.
05:59Mm-hmm.
06:00It's mixed-chart.
06:00It's also a nice, pungent, spicy, sour, tart, acidic condiment, a pickle.
06:09To counterbalance, you know, the sort of ghee-laden paratha sort of crust to it.
06:13So, there you see a plate being made.
06:16And then a little bit of green chutney on the side.
06:19I'm losing it.
06:20I gotta order one, because if I don't, I'm just gonna be starting to slobber all over my face.
06:24So, let me go in and place.
06:26So, one aloo paratha.
06:27One aloo paratha.
06:28With some right on the side.
06:29No green chutney.
06:31Okay.
06:32Oh, I'm getting the special butter paratha treatment.
06:35All right.
06:35Well, this is gonna be...
06:43You see the difference in the smoke point between the ghee and the butter?
06:46The ghee immediately, the butter immediately smoked up.
06:48I can smell the browning of the butter, but he's moving fast.
06:51And making sure that that way I don't end up with a charred butter paratha, but a delicious butter paratha.
06:57All right. Let's go get my paratha.
06:58Come on over for the condiments.
07:00And there's my raita, and there's my pickle, and just a sprinkle of that masala.
07:04The raita masala on top.
07:11You can pretty much eat this any way you want.
07:13You can eat it just by itself.
07:15Naked.
07:16Or you could add a little bit of pickle to it.
07:18Or you could add a little raita to it.
07:19My favorite is the double dunk.
07:21I'm gonna make sure it gets a little pickle on one side, and make sure it gets a little of
07:25the raita on the other side.
07:27And, I mean, I'm salivating right now.
07:44This is the real deal, guys.
07:45It's comfort food.
07:46This is mac and cheese.
07:47Whether it's butter or whether it's ghee, the way it hits that hot thawa and smokes and browns, it adds
07:53a nuttiness to the bread.
07:54And you can see the color of the paratha has completely changed.
07:58It's those milk solids in there that are caramelizing and becoming a part of the whole experience.
08:02So, I just discovered that the under paratha, the egg paratha, is not what I thought it was gonna be.
08:06I just thought they, like, put an egg inside the paratha.
08:08Like, maybe an omelet or a scramble or something.
08:10No, they cook it in a very special way.
08:12Let's go take a look at how they do it.
08:13All right. So, mix sandak here.
08:14And what did you put in there?
08:16Chili powder?
08:16And salt?
08:17Oh, he pokes a hole.
08:19Pours it in the hole!
08:26I love it, y'all.
08:27Must say.
08:28Must say.
08:28I thought, I thought.
08:30Wow, okay.
08:31I thought he was gonna put the egg on the flat top and then put the paratha on it.
08:34Which basically would make it like a kati roll type paratha.
08:37But no, the egg's inside.
08:39Wow.
08:40So, now just the egg's cooking on the inside along with the piaz?
08:44No.
08:45Just plain and then.
08:46Alu.
08:46Alu.
08:47Okay.
08:47So, this is a potato with the egg added to the inside of this.
08:51I guess he doesn't need to salt it because probably the potatoes are already well seasoned.
08:55There's a lot of salt going on already.
08:57And this is the cool part.
08:58The poke into the hole.
09:02Perfect for not a drop outside the paratha.
09:06Man.
09:07I can barely pour chai into a cup straight.
09:09In this case, putting two eggs in the inside of a sleeve, a pocket, gives the idea of a
09:14hot pocket, a whole new definition.
09:16The last one was a single egg.
09:17I got the double egg.
09:19What's the difference in price?
09:2020 rupees.
09:2120 rupees more.
09:22Single egg for 50 rupees and double egg for 70 rupees.
09:24Amazing.
09:25A alu paratha made by hand from scratch.
09:28We saw every step of the process with two eggs in it.
09:31It's 70 rupees.
09:33That is about maybe 60 cents, 70 cents.
09:3770 rupees.
09:38Less than a dollar.
09:39This is new to me.
09:40It's the first time I've seen an egg cooked inside of a paratha.
09:44God dang that's hot.
09:46Oof.
09:46Oh.
09:47Oh.
09:47Oh.
09:48That's beautiful.
09:49That looks gorgeous.
09:57Spiced paratha?
09:58Good.
09:58Spiced potatoes?
09:59Good.
10:00Buttered paratha?
10:01Good.
10:01Egg?
10:02Good.
10:03All three together?
10:03Good.
10:05Mmm.
10:06Mmm.
10:06Fantastic.
10:07So they say in the restaurant business, location, location, location.
10:10Well, this location is kind of remarkable.
10:12We've got a main highway right behind us where folks can see the parathas being made.
10:16They know where the place is so they can pull off on one of the feeder roads, park and come
10:20over here.
10:21We associate going out with going to a restaurant, right?
10:24That's what dining out in our minds is, an eatery, a place to eat.
10:26But I would argue that the street itself is a restaurant.
10:29There's something, I don't know, like cozy about just standing next to a stranger, sharing an experience, making small talk.
10:38I see families.
10:39I wouldn't trade this for a Michelin-starred restaurant.
10:42To me, this is the experience that I'm constantly seeking, that I'm constantly looking for, eating on the street.
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