Puran Poli

Puran Poli is a special sweet dish prepared using chana dal, maida and jaggery. This sweet dish is mostly prepared during festivals such as Holi, Gudi Padwa, Ganesh Chaturthi and Dussera in state of Maharashtra.

This recipe can be prepared in two variants, one is softer and another is the crispy puran poli. In my family, elder members like the softer variant while the kids will love the crispy one 😊

Preparation Time –  2 hours

Cook Time – 30 mins

Total Time – 2 hours 30 mins

Ingredients:

• 500gm Chana dal (Split Bengal gram)
• 500gm Grated jaggery
• 500gm refined Flour (Maida )
• 1 bowl refined Flour (maida) for dusting
• 2 tea spoon Cardamom powder
• 2 small bowl Oil
• Water as required
• ½ bowl Ghee
• Salt to taste

Serves:  8 persons (2/3 for each person)

Directions / Procedure :

The following procedure consists of three processes which includes process to make puran,
process to make dough and process to make puran poli.

A. Process to make Puran (stuffing of puran poli)

1. Wash the chana dal with water and soak the chana dal in water for 3-4 hours. If required again wash the chana dal and add double (means 1 cup chana = 2 cup water) quantity of normal water in kadai and cook this chana dal initially on high flame for 15 minutes and then cook it on medium flame.

2. In between check if the chana dal is cooked or not. Take the cooked chana dal on spoon and with your finger press the chana dal. If it get crushed easily then turn off the flame. Take big strainer/sieve and place it in a big bowl and pour the cooked chana dal in strainer/sieve for removing the excess water. Ensure that excess water is removed completely.

3. Keep the kadai on low flame gas and add cooked chana dal and grated jaggery in kadai, stir it well. Cook the mixture for 15 minutes on medium flame gas and stir it continuously.

4. Now keep the flame low, jaggery is dissolved completely and mixture become thick. On low flame continuous stirring is must, add cardamom powder and mix it well. Slowly the mixture starts thickening. If mixture thicken enough then turn off the flame.

5. If you need to check the mixture is well thicken or not, then place the spatula /big ladle/ mixing paddles/ in centre. If it stands vertically straight properly means the puran is well thick and if it falls then again cook the mixture for 3-4 minutes on low flame.

6. Now grind the hot mixture in puran yantra (i.e. machine to grind the puran). While grinding the mixture, make sure that it easily grinded and its very soft. Keep aside the puran.

B. Process to make the dough

1. While cooking process of chana dal is start, meanwhile simultaneously you can prepare the dough.
2. In mixing bowl/big deep plate, take maida, add ½ bowl oil and salt to taste. Mix everything very well. Now slowly add water in mixture and knead the mixture properly. Knead the mixture till the oil and water is completely absorbed by the dough.

3. While kneading makes sure that the dough should be smooth and soft. Cover the dough with lid and keep aside for at least one and half hour.

4. After that pour remaining oil on dough (if required add little extra oil) and again knead the dough very well. Now your soft dough is ready for making the puran polis.

C. Process to make Puran Poli 

1. Take the lemon size dough and apply some oil and use hand finger to roll the dough in round shape or roll it on dusted rolling board.
2. Fill the puran in centre of the roll of dough and close the roll properly. Like puri or chapati, softly roll the puran poli on the dusted rolling board. Be careful while rolling because sometimes outer cover may crack and puran will comes out.
3. Heat the iron tawa or griddle pan on low flame, initially spread some ghee (½ teaspoon) else sometimes puran poli may stick on tawa.
   Always roast the puran poli on low flame.
4. Like chapati, turn the poli first time and roast it, here both the side are required to be roasted. While roasting we observe some light brown spot on poli that means it is cooked well. When third time turn the poli again then spread some ghee (4-5 drops) from bottom side and here sometime poli will get puff up. Then using spatula carefully to remove it from tawa and spread some ghee again. Like this you make all puran polis and keep it on kitchen napkin.
5. Now your puran poli is ready to serve. Serve it with warm milk and ghee.

Tips / suggestions:

• Instead of maida you can use wheat flour.
• Use half grated jaggery and half sugar as per your choice.
• If puran yantra is not available, then grind it in grinder without water.
• Puran poli can be stored 4-5 days in air tight container without refrigerator
• For crispiness, roast the puran poli on low flame for long time and apply little bit ghee from both the sides and keep flipping till it becomes hard.

Photos for reference: