I decided to write this post after my daughter helped me for the first time this year on Ashtami day(eighth day of Navratri) to make the parshad(food offered to god). Usually, Ashtami falls on a weekday, and she needs to take her school bus by 7 a.m. , so its usually me with a little help from my husband trying to get Parshad ready by 6.30 in the morning, so we can do our puja(prayers) and she can eat parshad before going to school. But this time, Ashtami fell on a Sunday and my husband was out of town, so I asked my daughter to help fry the puris.

Normally, I roll and my husband fries, he has been trained in making the best, puffiest puris! But I was alone and my daughter had to be taught how to fry, so I just rolled out a few while I waited on the oil to come to the right temperature. We assume that everyone knows the technique behind it – the pliability of the dough(little firm and not too soft), the correct temperature of the oil,(not smoking and not cold either) and the most important one-when to flip and how to press on it to make it puff up. Some other popular types of puris are- Palak ki puri/paratha, Bedmi Puri-Instant Dal Puris without Soaking and Grinding, Beet Ki Puri/Paratha, Shyam Savera Puris, and Tirangi Puris.

She is a quick learner, she quickly got the hang of it, and I could even take some pictures of her frying! Next tutorial will have to be to make the dough and to roll it out. It was nice to spend time together, mother and daughter and bond over cooking in the kitchen. Hopefully, she will someday make parshad on Ashtami morning and will be teaching her daughter the technique to frying the perfect, puffiest puri!

Perfect Puffy Puris

Aanchal Gupta

Learn the technique of making every puri puff up perfectly. The pliability of dough,temperature of oil and when to flip and press, all explained with pictures.

5 from 1 vote

Print Recipe

Prep Time 5

Cook Time 20

Total Time 25

Course Indian Fried Bread

Cuisine Indian

Servings -30 puris depending on size

Ingredients

31/2 cups Atta Wholewheat flour
1/2 tsp Ajwain Carom seeds(optional)
11/2 tsp salt
Almost 2 cups water approximately
Oil for frying

Instructions

Put Atta, salt and Ajwain in a big bowl.
Gradually add in the water. Add a little, knead and add some more. You may need a little more or less, depending on the brand of flour. The dough should be pliable but firm. Don’t make it too soft or it will be hard to roll.
Leave the dough covered for at least 20 minutes, this gives time for the dough to get more elastic.
Meanwhile, heat the oil. Temperature of the oil is very important. If the oil is too hot and smoking, the puri will brown without getting a chance to puff up.
If its not hot enough, the puri will sink to the bottom of the pan, gradually come up and soak up a lot of oil.
The perfect temperature is when you put dough in, it doesn’t sink to the bottom and the puri starts to cook a little,flip it,(please look at pictures below) press the part that’s beginning to puff,(please look at pictures below) when you press it forces the rest of the puri to puff. By now you should have a perfectly puffed puri, flip again to brown both sides.

Notes

Dough for Puri should be firm, unlike Rotis and parathas.
Temperature of oil is very important, read above.
When to flip puri is also very important, read above.

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Here is the step by step pictorial recipe-

Whole wheat Flour(Atta), salt( I use pink salt) and ajwain/carom seeds