Main ingredient: This dish has multiple main ingredients, rather than one or two main ingredients. We recommend for this dish’s ingredients information that you visit our Ingredients page (found towards the start of this section of the website), to learn more about the health-related aspects of the dish’s individual ingredients.
Taste description & background:
Very spicy and with great feature being the crunchy texture of the puri, exterior of the snack and the pleasant mix of the ingredients with the pani puri water. I have had these more as snacks at festivals and sometimes from street stalls rather than at home, but a Nepali friend in Kathmandu showed me the cooking method, and I later found that on moving to the UK a couple of my Nepali friends (all of these were females) also knew how to make.
The pani puri in Nepali culinary culture has a tradition of being mainly popular with children and girls. There are no equivalent hot snacks in the UK/West, and you will find them on virtually no Nepali or Indian restaurant menus in the UK.
Quantity: Serves 2 people two times, or four people for one occasion.
Time taken on creating dish: to prepare and cook takes about 15 – 20 minutes.
Utensils:
- Chopping board
- Mixing bowl
- Frying pan
- Knives for chopping & dicing ingredients
- Spatula or wooden cooking spoon for stirring
- A teaspoon for adding ingredients to the puri
Ingredients:
- Puris (made from plain flower)
- 4 tablespoons of oil for cooking
A large brown onion - 4 – 5 medium sized potatoes
- 2-3 fine sliced birds eye chillies
- 1 tablespoon of masala
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- ½ tsp of cumin powder
- ½ tsp of roasted Coriander powder
- 1 cup of fresh coriander (chopped)
- Fresh lime or lemon (optional) – to squeeze
- Salt — to taste
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Methods:
Puris can be bought already part cooked (you just add to fry in a frying pan to complete), and used at need. However, you can make them too, from plain flour, with use of baking soda, and water, with some salt; you knead together until firm and soft, use a rolling pin to flatten thin and cut to a small circle (about 2-2.5 cm). Store or put aside, and then when ready to use fry in oil in a cooking pan – the puri will rise to become a small crisp very light ball (size of a walnut).
Making the filling: Boil potatoes (you can do this before starting to make the snack) and remove skins then chop and reduce to mashed pieces, then finely chop onions, chilies, finely chopped coriander leaves, chili powder, chopped chilies , and incorporate to the mix coriander and cumin powders — mix all of the ingredients in a bowl, to give even mixture of ingredients. You can include other ingredients too such as chanaa (chopped), etc. The paani puri liquid is made separately: you use about half a litre of water, some oil, a little masala powder stirred in, and also lime or lemon juice (optional).
To serve push a hole in the top of your cooked puri (finger easiest, and customary) then push filling inside with a teaspoon until almost full, and finally add the paani puri liquid by teaspoon. All is ready to now eat this tasty snack.