Recipe: Puris/Lucchis - deep fried puffed Indian Bread

Puris are a dish eaten across India. In Mangalore, it is eaten for breakfast with a dry potato bhaji similar to the filling of a masala dosa. It is eaten at lunch or dinner with a dry spicy mince dish.My uncle has a unique combination - where he eats puris with sheera

 In the North, puris for breakfast are served with a watery potato curry or halwa. In Maharashtra, puris are paired with Shrikhand (thickened, sweetened, sometimes flavoured yoghurt) for a special treat. In the North puris are often consumed at meal times as an alternate to rotis. My grandmother-in-law insists that on festive occassions, rotis/phulkas will not be consumed at home - it has to be puris!

While puris are made with wheat flour, in Bengal they make them with maida and call them lucchis. The recipe is the same with just this one substitution.

Making puris used to be a pain, when I had to use the traditional chakla & belan. If one is making puris alone, its a tricky matter of timing of rolling them out and frying them before the puris get burnt or the rolled dough drying out. It is so much easier with my roti maker. Also with the roti maker, there are no extra bits of dry wheat flour sticking to the dough - which tend to burn at the bottom of the deep frying pan.

Ingredients:
2 cups wheat flour (or maida for lucchis)
salt to taste
water to adjust

Method:
Make a dough with all the ingredients by slowly adding water and mixing to form a ball.

 

The dough is done if - when pressing it, it gets depressed and then slowly springs back into shape. Leave the dough to rest for at least half an hour in summer and one hour in winter. (I refrigerate leftover dough and it can be used for rotis or puris for upto 3-4 days)

Roll out into little rounds and deep fry.

With the roti maker, I  rolled them all out into circles and stacked them and then fried them one after another. Without fail, each and everyone of the puris fluffed up completely.

I served the puris with hari dhaniya ki aloo (fried potatoes in a green corriander chutney) and a Manglorean dry dish of mince, potatoes and peas.