Daal puri (daal stuffed puris)

Daalpuri. The term is self-explanatory... unless you don't speak Bengali, of course. Although really, if you frequent Indian restaurants, you know what daal is, and you know what pooris are. Put them together... and there you go!

This is, again, a typical Bengali breakfast food, served on holidays. But not the way turkey is served on Thanksgiving -- it's not that kind of holiday food. There is no special symbolicism attached to daalpuri, except maybe the happy subtext that you won't have to go to work that day. Neither is it stapled with a particular holiday or ritual (like bhuna khichuri with ashtami, payesh with noboborsho, haleem during Ramzaan, plum pudding for Christmas, mutton for Bakr-Eid). It merely signifies a holiday because when else will the modern woman (and man) have the time to sit down and savour a hearty breakfast, much less make it?

Ingredients:
Chholar daal (check translations here)
Methi and mouri (fenugreek seeds, fennel seeds)
Flour to make dough.
Salt, sugar.
Sunflower/canola oil. Ghee for flavouring.
Ginger (optional) -- minced.
Cumin, coriander or other spices for seasoning (optional)

Chholar daal, washed under a tap.

Make a moist, stretchy dough with the flour. First sift the flour with some salt and sugar, and a tablespoon of white oil/melted ghee (3 cups of flour: 1 heaped tablespoon of ghee). Adding the oil/melted ghee is called 'adding moyaan'. Add the water slowly and keep mixing it in, so the dough doesn't become runny and sticky like gum.

Now run the daal and ginger through a food processor/mixie.

Sliced ginger on bNoti

 

Daal in the mixie

Pasted daal+ginger

When pasted evenly, keep aside. In oil (or melted ghee) in a wok/pan, add mouri and methi in 4:1 ratio. For every two levelled cups of daal, take 1 teaspoon mouri and one-fourth methi. Fry for a few seconds on low, till the mouri starts smelling fried. Add the pasted daal and mix thoroughly. If using extra spices, add now and fold it in well. When the pasted daal has been slow-cooked in seasoned oil for about ten minutes (or till it changes colour), take it off the flame and keep aside.

 

Now divide the dough into roughly equal-sized balls. Flatten them between your palms till it becomes a small, thick disc. Now push down the centre so the disc starts resembling a rough-hewn cup. Fill with seasoned daal. Bring the rims of the cup together and twist them to seal the daal in, pressing down the twisted part onto the closed-cup. Flatten it again between your palms.

Roll out each stuffed flattened ball carefully, so as not to break the surface. Deep-fry them and serve with aloor dum, or any other curry of choice. I usually am too lazy to make the curry, so I eat the puris with a little lump of seasoned daal :-)