Puran poli

Updated 10/24/12 - Recently, I have gathered some good techniques from friends/online to make this dish even better. Hence updating this post.

Puran poli is a traditional sweet dish wherein maida rotis are stuffed with a sweet jaggery-chana dal mix.

Here's how I make it:

For the puran or filling -

1 cup chana dal

1 to 1.5 cups light color jaggery/gul

1/2 tsp cardamon pwd

1/4 tsp nutmeg pwd

Wash the chana dal and soak in 2 cups water for atleast 4 hours. Then pressure cook it for 8 whistles. Once the pressure comes down, open the cooker and remove the cooked chana dal. Mix it with the jaggery in a heavy bottom pan and cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally, until all the water dries up. This can take anywhere between 15 to 30 mins, depending how watery it was to start with. My MIL taught me that the test for this is that the stirring spoon should stand upright when stuck in the mix. That's when the mix is dry enough. Add the cardamon and nutmeg pwds at this time, mix well and take off heat. Once the mix cools, it has to be mashed completely. If you have the traditional puran yantra (manual sieve for mashing puran), use that. But I do not have that, so I have found that a gadget called ricer (available at Target/Walmart/Bed Bath type stores) works very well too. In the absence of this, you could also use a potato masher. The idea is that the mix has to be thoroughly mashed, no piece of dal or jaggery should be visible. I usually make this puran a day before I plan to actually make the puran polis since the puran should be completely cooled before stuffing. I refrigerate it overnight and thaw it to room temperature before use the next day.

For the dough -

1/2 cup wheat flour

1/2 cup plain all purpose flour

a pinch of salt

Warm water

Few drops of oil

Mix all except oil and knead into a soft, pliable dough. The consistency should be much looser than regular roti dough, almost to the point of sticking to your hands. Then add few drops of oil and knead till smooth.

To proceed -

Pinch of some dough, about the size of a small lemon and flatten it on ur palm. Take a ball of puran, double to size of the dough you took. Stuff into the dough, bringing the dough around the puran in a bowl-shape. Be sure to press the puran down gently so as to get maximum quantity of puran into the bowl shaped dough. Then bring the edges of the dough together and pinch them shut. Flatten between palms. Roll out gently into a thin roti using flour to dust. Roast on a tawa until brown spots appear on both sides. Smear with ghee and serve warm.



I always make these puran polis for Holi and this time they are off to Purva's Holi Hai event.