HoLi re HoLi, Puranachi PoLi

Puran Poli is a flat bread served on auspicious occasions. This is especially cooked on Holi. This melt in mouth Poli is yummy but its procedure is very elaborate. This is one of my favourite maharashtrian food. I love to savour this food with Katachi amati ( tempered Lentil stock ).

Holi is a festival of colours, bhang and Puran Poli.

Its a delicate bread which is made with chana dal, jaggery and cardamom powder. Many people use maida for the outer crust but I use wheat flour but I almost soak it in oil for 5-10 minutes. This is basically done so that dough can be rolled over the stuffing very easily and with minimum pressure. This flat bread should be cooked on a heavy bottomed griddle. This is served either with Ghee or milk and some people prefer both. Its best eaten directly off the griddle. Tear a bite sized piece soaked in ghee and eat it. we also make katachi aamati to be served with this.

Now I cant wait to write about it.

Ingredients

for Puran
1 cup Channa dal
1 cup Jaggery
1 tsp Cardamom powder
½ tsp Nutmeg powder

for Poli
2 cups Wheat flour
1- 1/2 tsp Oil
1 cup luke warm Water or milk for a richer taste.
3-4 tbl spn rice flour for rolling the dough.
Salt to taste
Ghee for serving

Method:
Pressure cook dal with 1 1/4 cup water. Cook upto 3-4whistles.
While the dal cools down , knead the dough. Keep this in a bowl and put about 5-6 spoons of oil . Drain all the water and let the dal cool a little. Pass this through a Puran Yantra or food processor with NO water. This should give you a thick consistency ball of mashed dal. Cook this with grated jaggery, cardamom and nutmeg powder till all the water has evaporated. It should be very thick and dry mixture.
Take a small ball of dough. Take the dal mixture which is a little larger than dough. Now roll this is rice flour and very delicately roll each poli.
Cook on medium flame till golden on each side.

Serve hot with desi ghee and/or milk.