Puran Poli: Maharashtrian Sweet Lentil Flatbread
- Total Time: 4 hours 30 mins
- Yield: 8 flatbreads
Description
Puran poli is a traditional Marathi and Gujarati sweet dish served during major festivals in India.
Ingredients
For the Dough
- All Purpose Flour - 1 cup (240 ml)
- Wheat Flour - 1 cup (240 ml)
- Salt - 1/4 tsp or as per taste
- Ghee - 2 tbsp (30 ml)
For the Puran
- Bengal gram lentils (Chana Dal) - 3/4 cup (180 ml)
- Jaggery (Gur) - 1/3 cup (80 ml)
- Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp
- Ghee - 1/2 cup (120 ml) (you can use butter too as an option)
Instructions
- First we will prepare the dough, mix wheat flour and all-purpose flour in a big bowl, add salt and ghee and knead well with little luke warm water to prepare a soft dough like we prepare for making chapatis.When the dough is ready keep it aside for 15 minutes covered, this process will let the dough to rise a little.
- Time to prepare the Puran mixture now, we have soaked the chana dal for 4 hours already. Take the soaked chana dal, pressure cook it with little water, just about enough to cover the dal in the cooker, after one whistle switch off the flame and let the dal sit in stream for another 5 – 7 minutes, keep it in a bowl to cool a little and then grind the dal in a mixer to a thick paste.
- Heat ghee in a kadai, when ghee melts add jaggery to it and keep stirring on medium flame till it melts. Now add the thick chana dal paste to it and stir continuously, the melted jaggery will be nicely absorbed and cooked with the chana dal in about 7 – 9 minutes. Sprinkle cardamom powder to it and switch off the flame and allow the mixture to cool.
- When the mixture cools, make lemon size balls from it similarly prepare balls from the dough also. With the help of a rolling-pin prepare small circle from the dough and place puran mixture on it and gently close it with the help of your hand to make one stuffed ball.
- Take a rolling-pin, gently roll the ball prepared with stuffing by dusting the flour on both the sides. Once it’s rolled , heat the tawa and place the puran poli onto it for cooking, gently keep checking from both the side by spreading little ghee on both sides of the puran poli.
- It should be cooked crisp from both sides. When its cooked from both sides nice and crisp then your puran poli is ready to be served, don’t forget to add dollops of ghee onto it before serving.
- Prep Time: 4 hours
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: Indian
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 flatbread
- Calories: 260
Maharashtrian puran poli is a stuffed sweet flatbread, and the name explains itself: puran is the filling, poli is the flatbread, literally, in Marathi. The filling is a paste of chana dal (a small split lentil, also called Bengal gram), cooked down with jaggery (unrefined cane sugar) and cardamom until it turns thick and fudgy. You wrap that ball of paste in wheat dough, then roll it out again thin enough that the filling shows faintly through the surface, and cook on a hot griddle with ghee until both sides turn spotted and gold. It tastes amazing.
Maharashtra shares the dish with Gujarat, the state just to its north, and in both it is festival food, made for Holi and other holidays. Now, it belongs to a much larger family of Indian flatbreads cooked roughly the same way, layered and pan-fried, most of them savory and filled with potato or paneer. The whole process takes a full day between soaking, cooking, and rolling, so families make a large batch each time instead of a small one. And it is so worth it.
Served warm, with a fresh spoon of ghee melting into the top, puran poli is kind of a fabulous mix between bread and dessert. It is sweet enough on its own, rich enough that a small piece is plenty, and simple enough for anyone to succeed with.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is jaggery and can I substitute it?
Jaggery (gur) is an unrefined cane sugar common in Indian cooking with a rich, caramel-like flavor. I use 1/3 cup to sweeten the chana dal filling. If you can’t find it, raw cane sugar or dark brown sugar can work as a substitute, though the flavor will be slightly different.
Why does the chana dal need to soak for 4 hours?
I soak the chana dal for 4 hours before pressure-cooking. Soaking the Bengal gram lentils softens them, reduces cooking time to just one cooker whistle, and makes them easier to grind into the thick paste that forms the puran filling.
How do I roll out the stuffed dough without the filling breaking through?
Work gently — press rather than force the rolling pin — and dust flour on both sides. Cook the finished flatbreads on a tawa with a little ghee on each side until crisp on both sides, then serve with extra dollops of ghee on top.
