Puri

As promised yesterday, here it is my recipe for Puri that I served with garlicky potatoes and Aamras. I made all this yesterday. Just by writing the recipe and looking at the pictures, my mouth is watering already and I am getting hungry again.....It is like absolutely indulging in a guilty pleasure. This Bread that is probably not good for you and mango pulp that is loaded with sugar, but once in a while it is worth such indulgence. Last time I made the Puris was about more than 6-7 years ago.....so there...now I don't feel so bad.

Here is little bit about Puri which I referenced from Wikipedia:
Puri or poori (Hindi पूरी (pūrī), Oriya ପୁରି(pūrī), Bengali: পুরি (pūrī), Urdu: بوری, Tamil பூரி (pūri), Kannada ಪೂರಿ (pūri), Telugu పూరి (pūri)), Turkish:Puf böreği is an unleavened Indian bread, commonly consumed in India, Pakistan, Turkey, Bangladesh and Nepal too. It is consumed for breakfast, as a snack or light meal.

Puri is most commonly served at breakfast. It is also served at special or ceremonial functions as part of ceremonial rituals along with other vegetarian food offered in prayer as prasadam. The name Puri comes from the Sanskrit word पूरिका (pūrikā). It is prepared with wheat flour (either atta - whole-wheat flour, or maida - refined wheat flour, or Sooji – coarse wheat flour). A dough of flour and salt is either rolled out in a small circle or rolled out and cut out in small circles and deep fried in ghee or vegetable oil. While deep frying, it puffs up like a round ball. When it is golden-brown in color, it is removed and may be served hot.
Indian puri with accompaniments
Puri can be served with "saagu", "potato masala" ("alu palya" in Karnataka), halwa, korma, chana masala or dal (lentil soup). In some parts of India, Puri is also served with a mixed vegetable dish that is prepared during puja, and with mistanno, a dessert prepared with rice, milk and sugar.
A variant of Puri is bhatoora, which is three times the size of a Puri and served with chholey (spicy chick peas). It often constitutes a full meal (See Chole bhature). Bhatoora is made of a different flour - Puri uses whole-wheat flour while bhatoora uses leavened all-purpose flour ("maida").


Ingredients for Puri:


• 3 cups Chapati flour (wheat flour)

• 1 cup plain yogurt

• 1 and 1/4 cup water

• 2 table spoon oil

• 2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

• Vegetable shortening or oil or ghee for frying (I used vegetable shortening)



Method:


• Mix flour, yogurt, salt and oil until everything is mixed well together.

• Gradually add water to the flour mix and make dough with hands to desired consistency.

• The dough has to be harder than pizza dough but little softer than chapati dough if you are using tortilla press. If you are going roll out the puris with rolling pin then it should be same consistency as that of chapati dough.

• Knead the dough with hands for 5 min.

• Brush some oil on to the kneaded dough and cover it, let it sit for 30 min.

• Make 15 - 20 balls out of the kneaded dough. (depending on the size of puris you want, you can make smaller puris and make up to 40 puris from same dough. This is typical of Gujrat, where they make very small puris. However I grew up in North where they make bigger size puris.

• Heat oil in frying pan or deep fryer.

• I use my tortilla maker to press puri, they come out of same size and every one of them puffs up in oil, when fried.

• Plug in the tortilla maker, when oil and tortilla maker are heated, you place a ball (with little oil brushed on it) on the tortilla maker (near the top periphery).

• Press the tortilla maker and once the ball is pressed in to a round puri, carefully place the puri in heated oil.

• Carefully press the puri in hot oil with frying strainer spatula, till it puffs up.

• Flip over and cook the other side.

• When both sides are cooked to desired crispiness, take the puri out of oil. Place it on a paper towel.

• Repeat the process until all the balls are made into puris.

• Serve hot with Potato sabji and Aamras.










Aamras or Amras is the pulp of the tropical fruit Mango eaten in central India especially the state of Maharashtra. The pulp of a ripe fruit is extracted usually by hand and consumed along with Chapati. At times ghee and milk are added to the pulp to enhance its flavour. Sugar is also added to adjust the sweetness.

A regional version of Amras is a popular desert in , Rajasthani cuisine and Marwari, Maharashtra, Gujrati homes, especially during festivities.

The Ratnagiri region of Western India is the largest producer and exporter in India of the Mango fruit. Since the fruit is seasonal, being harvested at the end of summer, the need to preserve the fruit in the form of pulp has given rise to moderately large Mango processing Industry.

Aamras is also a traditional Gujarati dish (called as Keri no ras). It consists of sugared mango pulp, which is passed through muslin to remove fibrous strands of the fruit.

Fortunately nowadays, you get Mango pulp from different variety of Mangoes in cans in any corner of world. So you can enjoy Mangoes anytime of the year. These can of pulp have sugar already added.

It is very easy to serve.

• What you can do is open up a can of Alfonso mango pulp or Kesar Mango pulp and add one cup of milk or evaporated milk and some crushed ice to it.

• Some people add saffron or pinch of ginger powder to this, but I like it just plain with some milk.

• Mix well and serve with Puri.




Description of Puri source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puri_%28food%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License
Description of Aamras source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aamras
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License


Recipes and Photographs by Surekha.