Dal puri

A traditional Bengali breakfast, usually served with ‘aloor dum‘ (coming soon !! ) 😉

People usually call ‘Dal puri’ as ‘Radhaballavi‘, but they aren’t the same. There is a difference of a vital ingredient, lentils.

I have come across several Bongs, who do not know the difference. Dal puri is stuffed with split yellow gram and Radhaballavi is stuffed with split black gram.

Dal puris = stuffed unleavened deep -fried Indian bread.

Historically such delicacies were made in rich and affluent households of nawabs and other royalties. Gradually they started appearing as  appetizers in weddings.

This used be a rare sunday morning treat, usually during winters. Mom used to get up early on that sunday for grinding the soaked lentil on the grinding stone. We did not have a mixer- grinder those days. That’s why i mentioned ‘rare’ 🙂 Now we are surrounded by gadgets to make work easier for us 🙂

Here’s what i did………..

INGREDIENTS

For the filling :

1/2 cup – split bengal gram ( chana dal)

1 tsp – ginger paste

2 nos – green chili

1/4 tsp – cinnamon and nutmeg powder or garam masala (Indian all spice)

1/2 tsp – asafoetida powder

salt to taste

1 tsp – roasted cumin powder

1 tsp – fennel seeds

1 tsp – roasted coriander powder

1/2 tsp – roasted red chili powder

1/2 tsp – sugar

For the unleavened bread :

1 1/2 cup – refined flour

1/2 tsp – salt

2 tsp – clarified butter

some lukewarm water to knead

METHOD

Soak the split gram overnight. Grind the soaked gram with green chili.

In a pan heat 1 tsp oil and season with asafoetida and fennel seeds. Once the fennel splutters, add the ground gram. Lower the flame and keep stirring, because the paste has tendency to stick to the pan bottom. Add the salt, sugar, coriander powder, red chili powder, cinnamon and nutmeg powder.

Once the paste combines and moisture dries up, take it off fire and keep aside to cool. Once cooled, sprinkle the roasted cumin powder and mix.

In a large bowl sieve in the flour and salt. Add the clarified butter and rub well with the flour. Gradually add the lukewarm water and make a firm dough. Cover with a damp cloth and keep aside for 20 – 30 mins.

prepared yellow gram mix and refined flour dough

Keep oil in a wok to heat for deep frying.

Make lemon sized balls of the dough. Sprinkle some flour and roll out these balls. Keep 1 tbsp of the gram mixture and enclose the outer skin (rolled out dough) around it.

lemon sized dough balls

keep 1 tbsp the gram mix in the centre and fold the outer skin around it

Roll out he stuffed ball. Do not roll it thin.

roll out the stuffed ball

Deep fry each in hot oil till lightly brown, over a medium flame.

Serve hot with ‘aloor dum‘ and pickle of your choice.

 

Taking this traditional platter to Angie’s for the Fiesta Friday party 🙂

Hope you friends enjoy some traditional Bengali cuisine 😀

Happy cooking !! 🙂

Cheers !! 😀

 

 

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