Pani Puri
Its that time of the month, its the 10th of the month and each month since beginning of this year the ladies of the Muslimah Food Blogger's group host a challenge. This month's challenge was to create a dish from one of our fellow blogger's blog something which we had booked earlier. For me this was a difficult task as I had collected and book marked and even pinned so many recipes that I had no idea which one to choose. It was until Zareena from My Experiments with Food posted how to make Pani Puris. Believe it or not I have never had a Pani Puri.
Yes its gaining a lot of attention from the Maldivians during the recent years but I haven't had one yet. So I decided to give it a try. Making the potato filling was easy , the Pani was also not hard but when it came to making the Puris , the challenge came. The first batch of Puris came out like hard discs and refused to puff up. So I had to check you tube where I was going wrong, apparently you have to tap the Puri when frying them so they puff up but even then during the second attempt, with a little extra flour in the dough ( Zareena used 1 tbsp I used about 2-3 tbsp) some still came out like discs ,some half puffed and some real winners, Yes!. But unfortunately the boys even the hubby refused to try one, so I ate half of them while sending some over downstairs for my parents and sisters to try.
Recipe: Pani Puri, recipe slightly adapted from the recipe Pani Puri from the blog My Experiments with Food.
Puris : 1 cup semolina
2 -3 tbsp flour
pinch salt
1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda
warm water
Potato and Chickpea Chaat : 2 large potatoes
1/2 cup canned or precooked chick peas
1 small onion, chopped
1 tsp chilli powder
juice of 1 lime ( thats about 2 tbsp), but taste as you add lime
1 tbsp chaat masala
1 tbsp Finely chopped coriander leaves
Tamarind chutney : about 10- 12 dried dates, deseeded
1 tsp tamarind puree
2 tsp dried chilli powder
salt to taste
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1 small cube of jaggery thats about 1 tbsp I think, or use dark brown sugar or regular sugar if not available
Pani : 1/2 cup coriander leaves
1/2 cup mint leaves
1 tbsp ginger grated
2 tbsp lime juice
salt to taste
2 chillies
1 tbsp cumin powder
1 tbsp chaat masala powder
3 cups water
Now where do I begin...... hmmmmm.....
1. Start with the chutney, place tamarind, dates and 1 cup water into a small saucepan and place on a medium heat and let it come to a boil and then simmer till the dates soften and the water starts to reduce, add the sugar or jaggery along with the spices, mix well and let it thicken , stirring now and then. Once its thickened , remove and cool and then puree. Mine was a bit thick but still delicious. Store in fridge till needed in an air tight container or small bottle.
2. Now for the pani, place the mint and coriander leaves along with the ginger and chillies into a wet grinder or blender. Add a few tablespoons of water and the lime juice and puree to a paste. Remove to a large bowl or bottle and add the cumin powder, chaat masala and water. Mix, have a little taste, and then I decided to stain int as there were bits of leaves floating around and hoping the boys would eat I strained it into a bottle and kept in the fridge till needed.
3.To make the Puris, place the semolina in a large mixing bowl. Add two tablespoons of flour , bi carbonate soda and salt and mix with your finger tips. Slowly add the warm water a little at a time as the semolina absorbs the water. Mix with the fingers, you can check here on how its made. My dough seemed a bit sticky so added an extra tablespoon of flour. Its a slightly hard dough. Leave it to rest covered with a damp cloth for 20- 30 minutes.
Roll the puris, divide the dough into two, and rolled it as thinly as you possibly can. I used a cap of a small Nescafe' bottle to cut out the discs. Place the discs in on a dampl clean kitchen towel and place another damp kitchen towel on top of the disc. Repeat with the rest of the dough.
Heat oil for deep frying , once the oil is hot, just drop a small piece of dough and see if it sizzles up quickly. Carefullly add a disc into the hot oil and as soon as it starts to come up press on top of the disc so it puffs up. It sounds easy and even from the videos I watched it looked easy but when doing it its pretty hard and quite frustrating for a first timer like me. Drain onto kitchen paper.
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| various shapes of puris LOL! |
Now to assemble and enjoy a pani puri, crack open the top of the puri with your fingers , add some of the potato mix, top with some chutney and drizzle a generous amount of pani and try and pop the whole thing into your mouth??. Enjoy!
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