Come on, you should try it

At the core of my being, I’m just a girl who loves being with her brothers. However, the question is whether or not they like being with me. One thing that brought us together years ago was my brother’s love for Chilli Parotta.

When I moved back from the United States, my cousin brother’s family and mine used to go out for lunch a lot. One day, my brother decided he wanted to go to Saravana Bhavan, which was my first inkling that something interesting was going to happen, for my brother usually preferred chicken and this restaurant was purely vegetarian. When we got there, he asked me if I wanted Chilli Parotta. At first, I gave him a confused look. I wondered why he wanted to give me something with ‘chilli’ in the name when he knew I had a very low spice tolerance.

“Come on, you should try it,” he urged.

I hesitated for a moment. But being a little girl who idolized her brother, who had five years more life experience than I did, I said yes.

When it arrived, reddish-orange and steaming hot in a black serving platter, on top of an emerald green banana leaf. I finally understood why he had been so insistent. The light pieces of parotta were curled at the edges, crisp from being fried, but still a little soft and flaky in the middle. They were coated in a glossy red sauce that clung to each layer, with pieces of onion and bell pepper scattered around. It looked fiery enough to make me nervous, but somehow the sauce smelled more sweet and savory than frightening.

My brother gave me a fork and I cautiously speared a piece, bracing myself for the spice. I brought it to my lips, blew on it, and popped it into my mouth. The first thing I noticed was how crispy it was. Lucky for me, it wasn’t spicy thanks to the ketchupy-sauce coating that soaked into each layer without affecting the crunch. It smelled similar to a gobi 65 or Manchurian, but the taste of the parotta underneath the sauce made it distinctly Tamilian. My brother looked at me with the satisfaction of someone who had just proved a very important point.

“I told you,” he said.

Chilli Parotta grew out of the same Tamil food culture that gave us Kothu Parotta, famous in Madurai.

Chilli Parotta is a very popular variant of the Tamil favorite – Parotta – that’s well known in places like Madurai. It grew out of the same culinary tradition as Kothu Parotta, in which cooked parotta is cut or shredded and tossed with other ingredients on a hot pan. Chilli parotta takes that familiar, flaky bread and gives it a slightly different personality, combining it with onions, capsicum, chilli, sauces and spices. The exact origins of chilli parotta are difficult to pin down, but it is widely treated as a Tamil Nadu street-food and hotel favourite, with chilli parotta listed as one of the variants of Kothu Parotta.

When I make this dish at home, I prefer not to fry the parottas, but just cut them up and toss them into a frying pan, already filled with sautéed bell peppers, onions, and some garlic if I’m feeling adventurous. Once the pieces are in, I pour spicy ketchup over them and toss the mixture well after seasoning. I watch the pale layers of parotta disappear beneath the sauce, the onions becoming translucent and the capsicum softening around them. I like to think my kitchen smelled like the restaurant’s kitchen.

This version isn’t as crispy as the one I originally had, but the sentiment behind it remains the same.

As time passed, my sister, who is around four years younger than me, eventually joined me in the kitchen, trying to cook with me. However, I often pushed her away, claiming “I was the big sister” and that I got to take the lead. Eventually, I succumbed to her requests and let her cook with me, making chilli parotta specifically and turning it into a little family ritual. Somehow, the same dish that had once brought me closer to my brother became something I could share with my sister.

Even if the bond we have with our brother is severed now, when we eat this crispy parotta coated in sauce, I remember my brother urging me to try it. I remember the crowded restaurant, the plates clanging onto tables against glasses, the noise of everyone talking over one another, and the look on his face when I admitted that I actually liked it. This dish that combines Indian and Chinese-inspired flavours is what still keeps us together, even when we are no longer sitting at the same table.