Poori Bhaji
The kind of poori bhaji you get at restaurants, is difficult to replicate at home. The bhaji in South Indian restaurants are not thick like the North Indian restaurants. I like my bhaji a bit watery. Like the famous Saravana Bhavan “Poori Masala”. This recipe is the closest I got to the taste of the Saravana Bhavan one.
Getting a puffed up poori is something we all want, and yes getting a puffed up poori requires practise. During the initial days of marriage my mother-in-law used to tell me “Poori na ubbiyittu varanum” (Poori should always puff up! And me who was so good at creating continents while rolling a poori or chappathi, used to nod my head! Then after many many continents later I finally started creating Pangea, which slowly progressed to Earth, to thankfully round shape. So what I wanted to say is, no one starts cooking fantastic. Everyone starts with mistakes. Let the mistakes not dishearten you! The recipe I use for the pooris is the basic one, just flour, salt and water, nothing else. I’ll details some tips I learnt on getting puffed up pooris.
TIPS FOR PUFFED UP POORIS
1) The poori dough should be harder than the chappathi dough. By hard I didn’t mean rock hard. It should a tad bit harder than the chappathi dough.
2) Do not roll out a big circle and then cut out a smaller circle. This won’t help in sealing the edges thereby having the air being trapped.
3) Roll on one side. Don’t flip the sides while rolling out the poori.
4) The oil should be hot, then turn the flame down to medium. This ensures that poori puffs up but doesn’t brown the poori.
5) Once you put the rolled poori in the hot oil, lightly immerse the poori with a steel ladle on all sides. And turn the poori only when it has puffed up.
Poori Bhaji
Equipment
- Pressure Cooker
- Kadai
Ingredients
Poori
- 2 cups Wheat flour
- Salt as per taste
- Water as per need
Potato Bhaji
- 3 nos Potatoes
- 2 nos Onions sliced
- 2 nos Green chillies slit
- 1 inch Ginger chopped and crushed
- ¼ cup Turmeric powder
- 2 tsp Chickpea flour
- Salt as per taste
- 3 tbsp Oil
- ½ tsp Mustard seeds
- 1 tsp Urad dal
- 1 tsp Chana dal
- 2 nos Dry red chillies
- 1 sprig Curry leaves
- 1 handful Coriander leaves optional
Instructions
Poori
- Sift the wheat flour in a bowl, add salt to it and pour the water little by little to the flour.
- Knead the flour and water to a firm dough. The dough should be more firmer than the chappathi dough. Leave this covered for 10 minutes.
- Now take a small portion from this, roll it into a ball in your palms and press it.
- Dust the surfce where you will be rolling the pooris with flour. Coat the pressed dough also with flour.
- Slowly roll the dough into a round shape. Roll the poori only on one side, do not flip and roll.
- Repeat the process till all the dough is used.
- Heat oil in a kadai or deep vessel. Once the oil is hot reduce the flame.
- Drop the rolled pooris into the hot oil. Gently immerse the pooris into the oil with a slotted spoon till one side puffs up.
- Now turn the poori and fry for 5 seconds and drain it using the slotted spoon. Repeat the process till all pooris are fried.
- Keep the pooris beside each other, as it would hold shape for long. Enjoy the cloud like pooris!
Bhaji (Masala)
- Pressure cook the potatoes for about 4-5 whistles. Cool and peel the skin. Mash them roughly into big pieces. Add one cup of water to the chickpea flour ,mix well and keep aside.
- Heat oil in a wide vessel. Splutter the mustard seeds, add the urad and chana dals and saute till they are light brown. Cut the red chillies into two and add them along-with the curry leaves.
- To this add the sliced onions, slit green chillies and crushed ginger. Saute till they become soft or the onion becomes translucent.
- Add turmeric powder, the water mixed with chickpea flour and salt to the sauteed onion mix and bring to boil. Add the roughly mashed potatoes to this and cook for 10 minutes.
- You can add coriander leaves if you want to. Your restaurant style Bhaji is ready!
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