Hollow puff chips filled with flavored water may sound somewhat odd to American taste buds, but if you’ve ever experienced Indian street food then you’ve probably seen Pani Puri. Eric and I were introduced to this popular Indian snack when we did a food tour with Chicago Food Walks. We’ve been wanting to try them ever since but lacked the ingredients to do so. A recent trip to Houston with some stops at Subhlaxmi Grocers and Patel Brothers remedied that however, so we experimented this weekend!
Pani Puri is quite simple — it consists of a light fried spherical chip (puri) that is hollow on the inside and then filled with some type of flavored water (pani). If you know Indian food, you know the water will most likely be flavored well with some type of spice — and you would be correct. Before pouring the water mixture, however, the puri gets a scoop of extra deliciousness — often a sweet chutney, chili, chaat masala spice mixture, potatoes or chickpeas. The ingredients vary according to the region, as does the name of this dish. It is sometimes called golgappa, phuchka, pakodi, phulki, pani batasha, or gup chup.
As this was our first attempt at Pani Puri, we didn’t feel confident making everything from scratch so Eric purchased pre-packaged semolina puffs and two types of chutney: Mother’s Recipe Bhelpuri Chutney (sweet with dates, jaggery, mint, coriander, green chili & tamarind) and Nirav Mango Chutney (spicier with mango, coriander, green chili, coconut powder & spices). He made a chickpea filling and second pani sauce himself. Here are the ingredients we used, the recipes, and how we served it (disregard the homemade hummus & pita chips in the pictures…we got crazy). 🙂
Puri Filling
Sweet Chutney
Spicy Pani
Sweet Pani
Puri
Preparation:
I thought it very timely that Eric decided to make this dish about a week after I finished reading a book by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni called The Palace of Illusions, which is an adaptation of the Mahabharata epic from the perspective of Panchaali (aka Draupadi). One of the legends of origin for pani puri involves Draupadi, so how perfect was that! For more history and a better description, I suggest this article:
https://foodandstreets.com/2017/05/29/culinary-chaos-a-history-of-pani-puri/
