Puri Bhaji is a traditional Indian breakfast comprising of bhaji and puri. Bhaji is made with boiled potatoes cooked with fresh spices - ginger, green chili, coriander and puri is a deep fried puffed flat bread made with whole wheat flour. Though served as a breakfast dish in many restaurants and food joints but it can be equally enjoyed as lunch or dinner and can also be packed for lunch box / picnic or potluck.
Course Breakfast, dinner, festivalfood, lunch, roti or bread
Add a tsp of oil and salt as per taste to it. Mix well.
Now gradually add water and start kneading into a tight/ semi stiff dough. (It should not be lose).
The tight / semi stiff dough is ready. Add a tsp of oil and smoothen the dough.
The dough is ready. Cover and keep it aside for 20 minutes.
Making bhaji from Potato /aloo
Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds and cumin seeds to it and let they crackle.
Add chopped green chili and grated ginger to it. Saute well.
Add curry leaves.
Add dry red chili and saute well. Add asafoetida and turmeric powder.
Mix well.
Add the boiled and cubed potatoes. Mix well.
Add salt.
Add lemon juice and mix well. Also mash light some of the potatoes while mixing with spoon.
Sprinkle some water on the potatoes. Mix well. Cover with lid and cook for 5-6 minutes on medium heat.
After 5-6 minutes, the flavors and nicely absorbed and the bhaji is ready. Add chopped coriander to it and mix well. The bhaji to be served with puri is ready. Keep aside and we will roll and fry the puris.
Rolling and frying the puri
Keep oil to get heated in a small heavy bottom pan or pot. We will roll puris in the mean time.
The dough is set well after 20 minutes. You can see the white spots on the dough.
Knead the dough once again to make it smooth and divide the dough into small balls. You can make around 30 balls from it.
Take one ball. Smoothen between the palms and flatten it by pressing between the palms. Similarly flatten the remaining balls. Cover and keep aside to prevent from drying.
Grease the rolling board and rolling pin with oil . Take one flatten dough and start gently rolling into a circle with the rolling pin.
Roll into 4 cm circle. Roll the remaining puris.
Take one puri and slide it gently into the hot oil. (Keep the heat on medium while putting the rolled puri into the oil). Be careful and keep children away as the oil is too hot.
The puri goes down .
The puri will puff up. Or press with the spatula and it will puff up. (the temperature of the oil plays an important part in puffing up the puri. So maintain a constant temperature while frying the puri. Too high temperature will brown the puri and too low temperature will not puff the puri).
Cook golden on both the sides by flipping in between.
Take the puffed puri in the slotted spoon so that excess oil drips off and remove it on the tissue paper on a plate.
Similarly fry the remaining puris. The hot puffed puris are ready to serve.
Serve the puri with bhaji and pickle for a scrumptious treat.
My son gave me thumbs up after eating his favorite puri.
Enjoy puri bhaji in breakfast, lunch or dinner or pack it for the lunch box / picnic/or potluck.