The first step for bolani was to make the dough. This version consisted of flour, yeast, water, oil, and salt. This was different from the last version which was not a yeast dough. After proofing twice, the dough is rolled out into circles, then filled and sealed. Unlike the last time, where I got mostly strips and ovals, I did get a few circles this time and other almost-circles or shapes that somewhat resembled circles. I guess over that two year span, I got a little bit better at that.
For the filling last time, I made mashed potatoes and mixed them with scallions, spinach, and seasonings. For the potato one this time, I added onions (from the recipe) and scallions (because I had extra), and I will confess that I used instant mashed potatoes. There was enough to do with the dough rolling and making two fillings that I just didn't think I had the time to peel and mash potatoes too. (I was right.) The filling was fine with instant. Instant mashed potatoes are so underrated.
The chive filling was the one I was most excited about. It called for 2 cups of finely chopped garlic chives, along with a bunch of cilantro, scallions, onion, and seasonings, so lots of chopping, lots of time-consuming prep. This filling was fantastic, even eaten alone by the spoonful, so I was at least relieved that even if the bolani didn't turn out that well, the filling would be good. Our bunch of garlic chives was gigantic (wish I had taken an ingredients picture, but I was short on time and space), but it was far more than 2 cups of garlic chives. I guess I should have found a second recipe to use them in, but instead I used them all here. The leftover filling was amazing mixed into oatmeal for breakfast. I could eat that all the time if I had a daily-replenishing bowl of chive filling.
The last time I made bolani, I baked them, but this time, they went into the air fryer. That process took a little longer since the air fryer could only fit two or three at a time, but I think we liked the results better. The last time, the outside was crispy like a cracker, and everything was kind of bland, which was not the case here. It still didn't look like a thin flatbread, but it was just like eating a stuffed bread roll. The potato filling here was also a little on the blander side, but the chives one was wonderful. I have no idea how the bolani in the recipe photo (or what we had at the restaurant) were so flat while ours were huge, but at least these were tasty.
The last component was a chutney for dipping. A few days before I made these, Eater had published an article about bolani (talk about timing). In it, they profiled a refugee in Albania (funny coincidence, we were in the Albania part of the AtWCC as well when we made this) who started an Afghan restaurant that served bolani. I didn't want to make two days of bolani, so I decided to try the chutney recipe from the article even if I didn't make the bolani itself. The chutney was a blend of tomatoes, jalapeño, garlic, vinegar, salt, and sugar.
Usually, we would try to tone down the spice of these dishes for B, but he hadn't been very into dipping or sauces, so we just made it the same way but with one jalapeño instead of two and removing all the seeds. We were right in our prediction, and he had no interest in the chutney, but we really liked it. It was such a good match for the bolani. It reminded us a little bit of the salad dressing at our favorite Yemeni spot which we have always loved, and now we have the recipe for something close to that!
Even though they didn't turn out looking like the photo, we deemed our second Parwana experiment a success, and couldn't wait to see what else was in the cookbook!
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