Puran Poli

Puran poli is a Maharashtrian sweet made by wrapping a sweet pulse filling in wheat dough, rolling it out thin and cooking it. The finished sweet looks like a flatbread, but the filling of pulses and jaggery reaches right up to the thin outer layer. The surface has browned spots from cooking, and while it is still warm, it tears apart softly with the aroma of ghee.

In Marathi, puran refers to the sweet filling inside and poli to the flatbread.

Puran poli on a Maharashtrian dining table. Photo: Phadke09, 2021. Reduced-size version from the distributor used; no content changes after retrieval (source, CC BY-SA 4.0).

A smooth pulse filling protects the thin outer layer

In Maharashtra, chana dal, which is chickpeas that have been skinned and split, is commonly used. The pulses are cooked until soft, drained, and then cooked with jaggery to make the filling. Some recipes add cardamom, nutmeg, ginger or other spices. When the jaggery melts, the filling temporarily becomes looser, so it is stirred as it cooks until enough moisture has evaporated for it to be shaped into balls.

The filling has two requirements: no hard pieces of the pulses can remain, and its moisture must be reduced enough for it to be wrapped. If whole pieces remain, they can easily tear the dough from the inside when it is rolled thin. Some households have a puran yantra, a tool for mashing cooked pulses by pressing them through it. Other recipes use a sieve or masher. A smooth filling is easier to roll out thin along with the outer dough.

Preparing puran in a home in Nashik district. Photo: कल्याणी कोतकर, 2020. Reduced-size version from the distributor used; no content changes after retrieval (source, CC BY-SA 4.0).

Rolled out again after wrapping

The outer dough is made with whole wheat flour, refined wheat flour or a mixture of the two. Water and fat are added, and the dough is kneaded and rested until it is soft enough to stretch along with the filling. The filling is placed on a small round of dough, the edges are gathered and sealed, and then the whole parcel is rolled out into a circle.

It is cooked on a tawa, a flat iron griddle. It is turned so both sides cook and is brushed with ghee. If the moisture of the filling, the softness of the dough and the thickness of the sealed part do not match, it will not roll out evenly. When the dough and filling have a similar firmness, they are easier to roll out thin together.

Sweet flatbreads that differ by region

Holige and obbattu in Karnataka, bobbattu in Andhra, and poli in the Tamil region and Kerala are also sweets made by wrapping a sweet filling and cooking it thin. They differ in the type of pulse, the use of coconut, the sugar, the spices, and the flour and color of the dough. They cannot all be treated as other names for one recipe.

In Gujarat, it is also called vedmi. In the Ahmedabad recipe that Dhara Shah inherited from her grandmother, pigeon peas are cooked and combined with jaggery and coconut to make the filling. In Khandesh, mande can be made large and thin. A maker seen at an event in Pune stretched dough wrapped around the pulse filling by turning it over both arms, then cooked it on top of a large upside-down pan.

In Balaghat district in neighboring Madhya Pradesh, it also appears at festival meals of Marathi-speaking people. The district’s food guide describes it being made for Holi and for Gudi Padwa, the new year, and being offered to the deity during the Ganesh festival.

Even in Maharashtra, its size and thickness are not fixed, and the result varies with household preferences and region. The basic structure of filling spread inside thin dough is shared, but the combination of flour and pulses differs from place to place.

A pulse broth alongside the sweet flatbread

Puran poli is made for festivals such as Holi and the Ganesh festival. It is served with more than just ghee, milk or yogurt. The liquid from cooking the pulses is sometimes used to make katachi amti, a spiced soup-like dish, as part of the meal.

In a festival meal presented by cook Uma Abhyankar, puran poli and katachi amti are served with stir-fried potatoes, coconut chutney, cucumber raita, rice and dal. The pulses used in the sweet filling and the soup made from their cooking liquid appear on the same table.

Some recipes use no animal products. In a home recipe presented by a Jain organization, the dough filled with pulses and jaggery is kneaded with vegetable oil, and plant-based ghee is served with it after cooking. The same sweet flatbread can be made with a fat chosen to suit the eaters’ dietary practices.

A meal including puran poli. Photo: Sharvarism, 2021, location unknown. Reduced-size version from the distributor used; no content changes after retrieval (source, CC BY-SA 4.0).

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