Puran Poli

The ultimate soul of any joyful occasion in India is food. Every state has its unique delicacy to celebrate festivities. This iconic Maharashtrian dish Puran Poli defines the Ganesh Chaturthi holiday and other festive occasions, such as Diwali in India.

What is Puran Poli?

Puran Poli is a simple flatbread dish packed with a sweet lentil filling made from chana dal and sugar. You can also use gram powder and jaggery. The sweet filling is known as Puran in Marathi, and the exterior bread is known as poli.

It is a delightful side dish with deep flavors that is also exceedingly simple and quick to prepare. This meal is popular with people of all ages and can even be packed for tiffin.

The poli is made with whole wheat flour (atta) and all-purpose flour (maida). You can also add some ground turmeric powder to the dough for a yellow-colored flatbread.

Notable Ingredients At A Glance

Ingredients for the flatbread

Wheat Flour – I have used wheat flour to prepare the poli because I am preparing a healthy version. You can also use wheat and all-purpose flour in combination or just all-purpose flour.

Ghee – Adding ghee while kneading the dough makes flatbread much softer.

Water – Adjust the quantity of water as per requirement. Make the dough neither too hard nor too soft.

Ingredients for the filling.

Chana Dal – Puran is primarily made with chana dal. But, in case you can’t find chana dal, you can also make it with gram flour.

Jaggery or sugar – Jaggery, as you know, is unrefined sugar. Thus, I prefer jaggery. You can also use sugar.

Cardamom Powder – Cardamom adds a sweet, spicy flavor to the filling.

Salt – To balance the taste.

Ghee/Oil – For frying, you can use ghee or oil either of it.

How To Prepare Puran Poli?

First, begin by preparing the dough. In a large bowl, take wheat flour and ghee, and mix them well. Now add water gradually and knead well to form a smooth and soft dough ( the dough must not to too soft). Cover and keep it aside for 30 minutes.

In the meantime, let’s move on to the filling.

Wash and soak the dal for 4 hours. Then drain out all the water.

Cook the dal in a pressure cooker with a half cup of water. Reduce the heat after one whistle and cook the dal for 10 minutes. Once the pressure has been released fully, open the pressure cooker. Remove all of the water from the chana dal.

Take a deep pan and add dal, salt, and jaggery powder to it. Mix all of them together and allow the jaggery to melt and give out water.

Continue to stir on low heat until all the water evaporates and the dal and jaggery are thoroughly combined.

Mix in the cardamom powder completely. Stir for 2 minutes, or until the dal thickens and begins to leave the sides of the kadai. Set aside and allow the dal mixture to cool.

Now, we have both the dal mixture for the filling and the dough ready.

Finally, let’s get started with our Puran poli preparation.

Take a heavy bottom tawa/ frying pan and heat it.

Make small wheat flour balls as we make for roti. Make small balls with the stuffing as well.

Dust dry flour on the kitchen platform or board and roll out one flour ball. Then add the stuffing and close the sides of the rolled-out wheat ball to form small stuffed balls. Roll out again. The Puran poli should be thin.

Apply ghee to the frying pan and cook the Puran polis till golden brown in color. Serve your warm puran poli with some more ghee.

Some Expert Tips For Preparing Puran Poli

• Rinse and drain the chana daal several times before soaking.
• Cook the daal in purified water. Hard water might cause lentils to overcook or take longer to cook.
• It may also take longer to cook old or organic daal.
• For a gorgeous golden color, add a pinch of saffron to the filling.
• The addition of dry ginger powder to the filling aids digestion but is optional.