Moghlai Porota
Every culture has their version of a crispy and flaky stuffed flatbread. Usually, it is filled with meat, eggs, cheese and spices then cooked on a griddle or deep fried in a wok of oil. Our Bengali version is called moghlai porota, otherwise known as mughlai paratha in the rest of the subcontinent. Moghlai as in hailing from the Mughal dynasty and porota meaning pan fried flatbread. It’s a popular Bengali street food that came from Kolkata, West Bengal but now it can be found all over Bangladesh.
It consists of a crispy fried porota in a rectangular parcel, coated with eggs, stuffed with herbs and minced meat curry, then deep fried in a wok of oil. Once the porota is fried and rested, it is cut into squares and served with sliced onion and cucumber alongside ketchup or coriander chutney. In Bangladesh, moghlai porota is a popular street food found throughout the year, but even more so sought after during the Hindu festival of Durga Puja.
It is quite difficult to pinpoint the origin but there are several different anecdotes on how moghlai porota came to be. Historians conjecture that the predecessor of moghlai porota may have been a traditional savory flatbread and pastry dish from Turkey called Gözleme. The Turk-Afghan influence in Bengal goes back to 1205 AD with military general Bakhtiyar Khalji of Delhi Sultanate. Bakhtiyar led the Muslim conquests of the eastern South Asian regions and established himself as the ruler which then ushered Islamic rule in Bengal, most notably known as the Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Bengal. It is possible that the Turkish flatbread gözleme was introduced back in the 13th century and overtime evolved into the moghlai porota we enjoy today.
Another version is a romanticized story of Mughal Emperor Jahangir as the one behind the creation of this scrumptious, stuffed flatbread. 300 years after Bakhtiyar’s conquest, one of the chefs in Emperor Jahangir’s imperial kitchen, Usman from Burdwan, Bengal created something new by adding eggs to keema paratha when the emperor’s fancy appetite grew tired of the regular keema paratha. His Imperial Highness loved the new dish so much he rewarded the chef generously. Usman’s son took the recipe with him back to Burdwan and his descendants took it to Kolkata which eventually became known as moghlai porota as the name indicates hailing from the Mughals.
My favorite and final theory is that moghlai porota came to West Bengal and eventually to Bangladesh from the Dawoodi Bohri Muslims when they moved from Gujrat to Kolkata. The Bohri Muslims also migrated from India to Malay countries like Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. They introduced a dish that is stuffed, folded and then pan-fried called murtabak that is now found all over South East Asia. I am pretty sure the moghlai porota from Bengali culture and the murtabak from Malay Muslim culture are long lost cousins, if not twins.
If you step back and look at the big picture, the three theories I discussed above follow a linear timeline and I like to think they are interconnected. Buuuuut that’s another story for another day. Let’s focus on the glorious moghlai porota today. Who wants the recipe?
Recipe: Moghlai Porota
Yield: Serves 2-4
Dough
AP Flour - 2 cups
Salt - ½ Tsp
Sugar - ¼ Tsp
Water - ½ cup
Oil - ¼ cup
Sift the flour, salt, and sugar through a strainer. Add oil and distribute it evenly until you have a crumb like mixture. Add water and knead for 5 minutes.
Note: If the dough is sticky, add additional flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough comes together in a solid ball. If the dough is too dry, add additional water, 1 tablespoon at a time. The end result should be a soft and smooth dough ball.
Pour 1-2 tsp oil on top of the dough, cover the mixing bowl with a wet kitchen towel and let it rest for at least 30 minutes.
Spicy Keema Fry
Oil - 2 Tbsp
Ground chicken - 200 g
Yellow Onion - ¼ cup, sliced
Garlic - 2 cloves, finely minced
Ginger - 1 inch piece, finely minced
Bird’s Eye Chili - 2, finely minced
Garam Masala - 1 Tsp
Kashmiri Red Chilli Powder - 1 Tsp
Cumin Powder - 1 Tsp
Salt - ½ Tsp
Cilantro - ¼ cup, finely chopped
In the meantime, prepare your spicy keema. Heat the oil over medium heat. Fry the onions until translucent, about 5 minutes, then add the garlic, ginger and chili. Then add salt, garam masala, red chilli powder and cumin powder. Stir well to coat, and continue cooking for another minute, stirring frequently so the ground spices don’t burn. Add the ground chicken, breaking up chunks with a wooden spoon, until no longer pink. Stir and cook in medium heat for about 10 to 15 minutes. Finally add cilantro, give it a mix. Taste for salt, add any, if required. Once done, keep it aside to be used later.
Bringing it all together
Eggs - 4 small/med
Red Onions - 1/4 cup, diced thin
Bird’s Eye Chili - 4-6, finely minced
Oil - ½ cup
Once the dough has rested enough, divide it into 4 balls. Tuck the dough in from all sides to form a tight disc for each dough ball. Oil the surface of the rolling board and rolling pin, then roll a dough ball into a thin long rectangle sheet.
In a bowl, whisk 1 egg, 1 tbsp diced onion, ½ tsp minced chili and ¼ cup keema. Place the egg and meat mixture in the center. Fold the longer sides first, press down to seal, then fold the shorter sides, like an parcel, seal it around the seams so there is no leakage. you can roll it very lightly but I prefer to just press it down lightly using my hands and seal all the edges.
Heat oil over medium heat in a large skillet or frying pan. Place the folded porota on the skillet with the seam side facing down. While the bottom is cooking, use a spatula to gently baste the hot oil over the top. Once the bottom has turned a pale yellow color, flip it over. You may continue to flip it couple more times and fry until medium golden color, it should take about 6-8 minutes.
Rest the moghlai porota on a cooling rack. Follow the same steps above for the rest of the dough balls. Add more oil, if required while frying. I followed the traditional step of shallow frying it in hot oil. If you want to keep it light and healthy you can use less oil and pan fry it in a lightly oiled griddle.
Serve it warm with ketchup or coriander chutney alongside cucumber, red onions and lime wedges.
