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Poori (Puri)
By
DK
on Dec 24, 2010
OK - I have to confess. I am a pooriholic(!!!!) As long as I can remember, I have been a fanatic in my love for it, so much so that I think I can have poori for a whole week and not be bored with it. Then marriage happened and everything turned upside down. The first year of marriage saw me experimenting with loads of dishes and I was sure not going to miss out on my fav. pooris. I had purchased some whole wheat flour (American brand) and used the same to make mine. Disaster struck. Here I was waiting in anticipation to devour some fluffy pooris (imagine a bad hungry wolf drooling ;)) , day dreaming about me enjoying the ones my mom made and what came out of my oil was something which did not even remotely look or taste like those :(. Instead what came out were papads (or popaddams as the westerners know it). Crunchy and hard....and FLAT!
Of course, I blamed the flour (What did you expect? That I will take the blame?? You WISH!). But the stigma it caused was too much. I did not touch puri after that - to make them or to eat them. Then it took my mom's visit to get my poori mojo back. And when she made them - aaaah, my precious poori was back :). Soft fluffy fried bread that I could eat all on their own without any accompaniment. Bliss.. Although I would have to say that enjoying it with potato masala is like mac and cheese combo. I had to post these after I realized I have some ardent bachelors and beginner cooks giving me readership love (thank you guyz :))
Basic Information
Prep Time: Under 15 min
Cook Time: Under 15 min
Serves: 2 people
Yield: Makes 6-8 pooris
Ingredients
- 1 cup wheat flour
- 1/4 tsp salt (or as needed for taste)
- about 1/2 cup water (or as needed to make a pliable dough. Might vary depending on the quality of flour)
Method
1
Stir the flour and salt in a bowl
2
Add water little by little to the dough
3
until it comes together into a pliable dough. I think we would have used around 1 cup of water but it might differ depending on the quality of the flour. So add it little by little while kneading. You can also add 1 tbsp or so of hot oil (that you are heating for deep frying) to the dough. The final consistency should not be too tight (dry) or too soft(wet).
4
Knead it well until smooth like below. The dough should not be sticky (only v lightly sticky) or feel dry in your hands.
5
Make small balls out of it. These will depend on how big a fryer you have. We intended to make puri of small-med (probably about 6 inch in diameter).
Tips:
Do not let the dough sit. Usually for roti(s), I insist on letting the dough sit for some time which makes the dough very soft. But for pooris this rule does not apply (at least that's what I learnt from my mom). She insists that letting it sit makes it prone to soaking up lots of oil while frying. Hence use the dough immediately to make the pooris.
6
Roll it out into small circles with thin-medium thickness. Don't make it too thin else it will come out crispy.
7
Repeat for all dough. Alternatively heat oil for deep frying.
8
Do the oil-temperature test to see if it is ready. The oil should be hot but not too hot that it smokes.
Tips: Drop a small piece of dough into the oil. The dough should fry up immediately and come to the surface. You know the oil is not hot enough when the puri does not puff up, is flat and instead is also soaking up oil.
9
Now drop the poori into the oil.
10
While the poori is slowly coming to the surface, make sure to keep ladling in the hot oil on the surface.
11
This helps the poori to puff up.
12
Turn it so that it gets evenly reddish brown or golden yellow (however you prefer)
13
Place it on paper towel to drain off any oil. If fried right, it wont retain oil.
Serve it with side dish of your choice. The famous combo is with Potato Masala (a curry made with potatoes) and also Chole (chickpeas curry). I also know many South Indian families who enjoy it with a condiment called as Pudina Thogayal which is a chutney made with mint and tamarind.
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60 Responses to “Poori (Puri)”
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Over here in Belgium, I love to make Indian food. Bombay potatoes, chapati, paratha and now these wonderful poori’s. They are awesome! I used atta flour. The first one didn’t puff. I assume my oil wasn’t hot enough. I use a deepfat fryer. Thank you for sharing!
Hello – I tried your recipe for puri last night.. I used atta flour and followed your recipe. The flour mix was good but I think my oil was not hot enough as the puris soaked up some oil. It was definitely a good try for my first time and I intend to try again soon!
Thank you so much. I followed your easy instructions and get good results every time. The poori is not at all greasy and at my last dinner party the guests were eating them on their own long after all the curry had gone. I have now made them every week for the last six weeks
Pooris do taste awesome on their own too, isnt it?
I used to just eat them right out of the fryer..:) I am glad to hear your feedback. Thank you 
–DK
These were delicious. I won’t cook them very often as they are deep fried, but I love them.
Want to try ..,.but confused
Jeez .. your pictures of poori are finger lickingly good!
I just tried it and it was horrible. am nt really good at cooking and i had my maid help me. the dough was hyper sticky so i added more flour. when my maid fried it it was hard and didnt puff at all. so depressing, i threw everything. am soooo dumb!!
This is a great recipe. At first, I tried making it with the wheat flour, but it didnt puff at all. So i tried the self-rising white flour, and every one of them came out so perfectly. I was impressed! I love indian food!!!
Just wanted to say thanks for the reciepy. I used to live in India and never bothered to learn it because, well, I thought I probably couldn’t get the atta flour back home anyway. By the way, I believe that popaddam is the southern probably Tamil word for it, but they did tend to tell me words in English even though I was asking for it in Tamil or Hindi or whatnot.
Can I use simple flour ? Just buy from Ireland local shop will the result same?
At tanaaz, since i was 4 minutes old. Mom started teaching me the second i started coming out
To tanaaz: since i was 4 minutes old, mom taught me the second i started coming out
How deep should the oil be? I don’t want to waste oil but want to make sure it’s deep enough. Should the heat be more high-medium (close to smoking) or low-medium? Thanks!
How much oil varies depending on the size of your deep fryer. But generally you would need enough oil to let the poori be completly submerged without really touching the bottom for too long. Also make sure you leave some space on top of the wok/deep fryer, so that the poori can rise on top. You don’t want an oil spill over either. –DK
I’m so greatful for this recipe , my grandfather used to make these for us as kids and its been 14 years since I’ve had them but the taste remains in my mouth . I love puris !!
I also had poori disaster – tried it few times and never came out good. Of course, I blame it on my whole wheat flour. I am going to try it today for Diwali and see if it comes out ok. Thanks for posting the step by step recipe.
Tried it and for the first time my puris just beautiful soft and fluffy. Thank you so much . I am making more today for Dewali. Happy Dewali to all
I could easily relate my same ordeal with you during first attempt. Tried exactly as per your instructions and all my poori’s came out fully puffed. Thanks a bunch to you and mom. Cheers
Hi! Thanks so much for posting this. I followed the recipe exactly and all my poori’s puffed up. I was so excited. They turned out perfect. Thanks
I had so much fun it was so simple before i had so many problems but not anymore!
Thanks a ton mate… Couldn’t believe I did it one go. My mom would have been proud of me
can u use whole wheat flour?
I have used the same in the recipe –DK
My mom adds a couple of teaspoons of oil as well. Makes the dough more pliable and the edges don’t crack. When rolling them out they should be no more than 1/8 inch thick. There are tricks to frying them so they puff every time. Use a slotted spoon to gently press the puris to keep it submerged in the oil until you feel the puris starting to puff and pushing back on the spoon. As soon as you feel this take the spoon away and let the puffing occur. Also taking the spoon and slowly slashing the oil over the parts that haven’t puffed yet helps to get a full puff. Lastly, you will have to adjust the oil temp– it has to be hot enough to puff the puris but not so hot that is causes over-browning too quickly.
Awesome, I haven’t been able to fry a puri properly in two years. After rolling out six, on my final fry I got it to go perfectly. I always thought you were supposed to keep it under the oil at all times, but turns out it works if you just leave it be.
It is a great recipe
. But I knew this way before u did. My mother taught me at the age of 5. And mine have always come out fluffy no matter what but the first one wasn’t much fluffy. But it has become way better 
I would wanna know, when did you start making these fluffy golden brown coloured puri’s and tell truthfully?!!!!