Pani Puris

Pani Puri is in arguably every Indian’s favorite roadside chaat. Chaat is a savoury snack typically a speciality of small stalls in India. These crunchy small puffed puris are filled with a bit of potatoes, mung sprouts and small channa, they are then dunked in spicy tangy mint water and tamarind chutney. Each little puri pops like a bubble full of flavours in your mouth. In spite of being slightly on the spicier side, kids love it. Mine jumps with joy every time its made at home. Others lose count when they gorge on these delightful mini packages!

The twist I added to the traditional recipe is I tried to avoid tamarind altogether. I have used raw mango’s piquancy than tamarind. Its healthier, and adds to the flavors of the mint, green chilies and rock salt!

If you don’t mind using tamarind chutney, then please skip the raw mango, else your Pani will be too sour to taste yumm. We don’t need to use 2 sour additives to make the pani. So, either which way, with raw mango or with tamarind, these little shots are gonna explode in your mouth!

Take a shot.

Ingredients

For The Puris

• 1/2 cup fine semolina
• 1/2 tbsp plain flour
• salt to taste

For The Pani

• 1 1/2 cups chopped mint leaves
• 1 tbsp chopped coriander
• 1 small raw mango pulp( peel, boil and remove the pulp of the mango)
• 25 ginger
• 4 to 5 green chillies
• 1 tsp roasted cumin seeds powder
• 1 1/2 tsp black salt
• 1 tsp pani puri masala( I used Everest)
• 4-5 tbsp sugar

For the filling

• 1/2 cup mixed sprouts , boiled
• 2 potatoes boiled
• a bit of red chili powder, salt and chopped coriander leaves

Optional: Tamarind jaggery date chutney

Method

For the puris
Combine the semolina, plain flour and salt to make a soft dough and knead well. Allow it to rest under a wet muslin cloth for 10 to 15 minutes. Now you could either divide the entire dough into small portions, and roll out the puris, or what I did was, to make whole big rounds, and then using a small cookie cutter, cut out puri rounds. They were more accurate in size this way.
These rolled out puris are then to be fried in hot oil on a medium flame till they puff up.
Remove, drain on absorbent paper and store in an air-tight container.

For the pani
Combine the mint, coriander, ginger, green chili and mango pulp and make a smooth paste.
Transfer the paste into a large bowl and combine with 1 litre of water, add the pani puri masala, the cumin powder and the black salt and mix well. The sugar should be added to suit each one’s palette. Like I know the taste of my family, so I throw in at least 2-3 tbsp of sugar. Mix well, and then chill for a couple of hours before serving. Or you could skip the sugar, and serve it in the traditional way of keeping the tamarind-jaggery chutney by its side. So each person makes the pani according to his taste.

For the Filling
Crush the boiled potatoes with your fingers, add mixed boiled sprouts, throw in a bit of red chili powder, salt and coriander leaves.

To EAT – its simple, really.
Crack a small hole in the centre of each puri.
Fill with a little sprouts-potato mixture, immerse it in the chilled pani and eat immediately.

To drool over.

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Gol Gappe!

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