It’s light,
airy, sweet and healthy to eat. It’s not as difficult to make as people say,
but it does need more skill, time and practice than a French crepe suzette. It
doesn’t belong the family of flaky parathas or rustic bhakris but because it’s baked on a dry griddle, we could label it
a sweet, stuffed, Indian bread. There’s no equivalent in any cuisine I googled.
The puran poli
is traditionally eaten at Holi and for Gudi Padwa.
To make it,
you need two hours undisturbed time to yourself, and a mate to help around with
the chatting, kneading, experimenting, eating.
Use a standard
coffee mug for measurements. One mugful of gram dal without the skin, another
of sugar, a half of plain white flour, a quarter of any not-strongly-flavoured
oil, and powders of cardamom, mace and saffron (just a pinch of each). Keep
handy some water, salt, rolling pin, griddle, gas-stove (because that’s the
only one I know), pressure-cooker, wooden spatula, steel spatula, and a
‘soup-machine’ (that old-fashioned steel gadget with holes in steel plates and
a handle that rotates blades that mash and sieve boiled vegetables into a thick
soup/puree). If you don’t have a pressure-cooker, make the time three and a
half hours. If you don’t have a soup-machine, figure out a way to puree the
cooked gram dal to a paste. It can be done by hand, but is not as efficient.
Here’s how you
go about it: pressure cook the gram dal till it’s soft enough to melt when you
touch it. Whilst it’s cooking, knead the flour with the oil, a pinch of salt
and bash the dough with all the anger and frustration you can muster to make it
rubbery and stretchy. Keep aside to rest, covered and undisturbed.
Strain out the stock from the cooked
gram and use it for something else. Put the cooked dal back into cooker, add
the sugar to it and keep simmering it till it’s thick enough to hold the wooden
spatula vertically. Be prepared to do a lot of wiping and cleaning afterwards
because this yellow messy (but yummy) dal splutters and protests as it blends
with the sugar syrup. Whilst it’s still warm, puree it to a smooth consistency.
Add the spice powders to it, knead well again. This puree is the filling, or
the ‘puran’.
Divide
dough and thick puree into equal parts. Make the puree into balls.
Put the
griddle on low heat and keep it thus for the next one hour or until you’ve
finished making the last ‘poli’ (or roti).
Take a bit of
the dough (you will need lots of dry flour to roll it out) and roll it into a
circle a little bigger than your palm. Place a ball of ‘puran’ in the centre
and gently stretch the dough over and around to cover it completely.
Roll it out
very gently into a ‘roti’. This is a delicate exercise. Slide the ‘roti’ onto
one hand and carefully place it on the griddle. When one side is done (check by
lifting with the steel spatula and making sure it’s a little brown on the
underside), toss it upside down to cook the other side.
When done,
slip it off onto a plate, eat hot with melted ‘ghee’.
You can store
these ‘polis’ in an airtight tin, separating them with squares of stiff paper,
for up to a fortnight. They can be eaten cold, with cream, or even with a touch
of mango pickle to neutralize the sweetness.
This is one
recipe, when mastered, that always invites compliments. From lay persons and
famous chefs alike. All you need is a spare afternoon and someone whose praise
you value.
‘Tis the season to be cooking,
tralalala… la gudi padva.
Happy, healthy
New Year everybody.
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