How I made my first Puris...

Oct 22, 2006

My life has changed since today morning and it will never remain the same again. Starting today I can make puris at will all by myself. The days of my waiting for a married friend of mine to invite me and hope that his wife will make Puris with aloo ki sabji is finally over. I have the power now. My mom made Puris a few days ago. As I tore each piece of the Puri, wrapped it around the allo sabji and put it on my tounge, it felt like a symphony playing chords on my taste buds. I lost count of how many I ate. That is when I decided that the key to my happiness lies in mastering the art of learning to make Puris by myself. Knowledge is power. I told my mom that I want to learn to make Puris - she was a bit shocked. My dad said, "looks like its high time for you to get married." I agreed with dad but I insisted that my love for Puris had nothing whatsoever to do with lack of a wife. I decided to document this historic event of my life in this blog. Any of you who share my love for Puris and wish to become independent can read this and become so.

I will begin at the beggining. First you take aata. One glass of ataa will give you about 12 pus minus 2 puris. You mix it with a half a tea spoon of ghee and some salt in a container. Then you go through the iterative process of sprinking it with water and mixing it with the aata - the goal being to create a maleable lump of dough. The quality of Puris is sensitive to the amount of water mixed, too much will make it too soft and too little will not let it be consistent enough. The dough I made is shown in the picture beside. I idea is to stop sprnkling water water when the dough is maleable enough be form one thick lump and consistent enough to be shaped as you want.

Now make small laddoos from this dough. The size of laddoos should be smaller than the standard baesan ke laddoos. The picture of the laddoos is shown in picture beside.
Now keep some extra aata separately in another container. This aata is required while rolling the dough into circular shapes. To roll the laddoo first dip it in this aata and use the Belan to roll them. The photo beside shows the rolled laddoos before and after. Ofcourse I could not make them absolutely circular, but I am hpping that practice will improve that. You may have to keep dipping this occasionally into aata while rolling it.
During this time you can heat some oil in a pan and prior to puttin the tolled dough into it test the temperature of oil to see if its hot enough by putting some small dough piece in it. If the piece of dough rises up immideatly and starts frying then the oil is ready. Now, you are ready to fry the rolled dough. For frying, put the rolled dough into the oil and dip it completely. As soon as it swells and puffs up turn it over. The entire process will take only a few seconds. The take the puri out. Thats it!!! One crucial thing is that you have to maintain the oil temeperature such that it does not over-heat or the Puris will burn before you can take them. On a electric stove I first put it in Max until the oil was ready and then turned it down to meduim while frying. This also limits the amount of smoke. On a gas stove a similar procedure may be followed but remember that gas stove reacts faster than an electric stove so you can have tighter control on a gas stove. There you can see my happy mummy and nannagaru eating Puris that I made!!! The entire process took about 15-20 mins.