Come for the curry. Stay for the cheater paratha.

When Meera Sodha invited me to cook with her at her London home, I insisted curry be on the menu. She’s the sort of cook we all aspire to be. Casually confident, grounded in what she knows, fearless about making her own anything she doesn’t.

That’s pretty much how the day went. Deliciously. She’s never lived in India, but her family’s Gujarati roots run deep and flavor much of what she prepares, even when she cooks beyond India’s borders.
I’d urged her to make a simple chickpea and potato curry from her new cookbook, “Dinner,” which joyously blurs and blends ingredients and dishes from a broad culinary spectrum, much of it nonetheless grounded in her mother’s cooking.

This is how we cook today, borrowing ideas and techniques and flavors, adding them to our repertoires without regard to borders, combining them in ways that truly change the way we cook.

At this, Sodha is a pro. As evidenced by that curry. Creamy, rich, just a hint spicy, deeply savory and on the table fast. It clocks as comfort food no matter your culinary heritage. And its own is a wonderful muddle, drawing inspiration and flavors from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, all married via Sodha’s core curry skillset.
But she took it further, suggesting we also make her quick—or cheater—paratha, a South Asian flatbread characterized by numerous flaky layers created by a laborious process of kneading and folding.

Sodha’s weeknight solution? A classically French ingredient—frozen puff pastry dough.

“The amazing thing about puff pastry is that when you buy it, it’s already got all those layers built into it,” she said as she rolled a hunk of dough into a round. “And so it’s very much like the layers that you’d find in a flaky paratha.”

Once the dough was rolled, she simply toasted it for several minutes in a dry skillet. The result was simply brilliant. Flaky, savory and perfect for sopping up that curry.

Someday, perhaps I’ll learn to make a proper paratha. Until then, I’m more than satisified with Sodha’s cheater version.

JM Hirsch

J.M. Hirsch is a James Beard Award-winning food and travel writer and editorial director of Christopher Kimball's Milk Street. He is the former national food editor for The Associated Press and has written six books, including “Freezer Door Cocktails: 75 Cocktails That Are Ready When You Are.”