Puranpoli
'Puranpoli' is a classic Maharashtrian recipe prepared on special occasions or festivals (especially for Holi). It is a type of flatbread prepared either with maida or wheat flour. A sweet and delicious stuffing of jaggery and chana dal is used to stuff the flatbread. This stuffing is known as puran while poli means roti or flatbread in Maharashtra, India; thus the name 'Puranpoli' literally translates to stuffed flatbread.
Ingredients
- 1 cup chana dal or bengal gram dal
- 1 cup wheat flour
- 1 cup maida or all purpose flour
- 1 cup grated jaggery
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg powder
- 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
- oil to knead the dough
- water as required
- rice flour as required
- ghee for frying
Instructions
How to make Puran:
- Soak chana dal for few hours after washing it thoroughly (I usually soak it for overnight but you can soak it for 3-4 hours as well).
- Add the soaked chana dal in the pressure cooker. Add 2-3 cups of water in cooker and wait until 5-6 whistles (ensure dal is properly cooked as we need to grind it further to make puran).
- Once the pressure cooker cools down, remove access water from dal.
- Now, mash the boiled dal with spatula to make a paste.
- Take a pan on gas with medium flame. Once pan is hot, add mashed dal and grated jaggery.
- Keep stirring the mixture untill jaggery starts melting.
- Once jaggery melted, the mixture starts to loosen up.
- Continue to cook over medium heat until mixture thickens and comes together.
- Once this mixture cools down, grind it into smooth paste. You can either use grinder or sieve it to form a smooth paste.
- Finally add nutmeg, cardamom powder into it and gently mix together.
How to make Dough:
- Mix wheat and all purpose flour together with water. Add salt and oil as required.
- Knead the dough till it softens, if required add more oil or water. I have added little turmeric in dough to get the colour, which is totally optional.
- Let dough rest for some time in a bowl with the lid on.
- Once dough and puran are ready; make small balls out of them. (as thumb-rule, puran balls should be slightly larger in size).
How to make puranpoli:
- Stuff the puran inside dough balls and gently press so that stuffing is evenly spread.
- Roll it evenly into thin puranpoli.
- Use butter paper or cotton cloth below while rolling the puranpoli. You can also dust some rice flour to help easily roll puranpoli.
- Switch on the gas to high heat. Once pan is hot, add the puranpoli to fry.
- Fry it over medium heat.
- Flip the puranpoli, once it rises a bit from one side. If possible, use hands to flip the poli, as spatula might break it.
- Add ghee on the puranpoli and fry it properly on both sides.
- Once it is fried thoroughly from both side, take it out on paper towel/cotton cloth.
- If required you can apply ghee over it. Our hot Puranpoli is ready to serve, you can enjoy it will cold milk or ghee.
Notes
- Allow chana dal to soak enough and pressure cook it until thoroughly cooked.
- Dough should be soft, use enough water and oil while kneading the dough.
- Consistency of puran should be perfect; neither watery nor hard. Use traditional method to test its consistency - where spatula should be able to stand still in the puran.
- For stuffing, make balls which should be slightly larger than dough balls.
- Ensure stuffing is evenly spread till the edges of puranpoli.
- While rolling, use butter paper or cotton cloth over the surface and dust some rice flour. It ensures puran poli won't stick to the surface.
- This is a vegan friendly recipe, replace ghee with oil for vegan version. Serve it with non-dairy options.