Farsi Puri – Flaky Crispy Layered Snack
Farsi Puri is these flaky layered puris that my mom’s recipe. Every Diwali my mom makes them, it’s a tradition.
This year when my mom was here, I decided to get the recipe from her, even though I have seen her make every year, it was this year I took down the recipe.
You know how difficult it is to get a recipe our from mom. Indian moms are notorious to not measure anything. It’s like take this a little bit and take that little bit.
But to share perfect recipe with same consistent results its important I weigh my ingredients.
What is Farsi Puri?
The word Farsi means flaky, crispy in Gujarati. Puris are round discs often fried; they could be soft puris that we eat with our food like bread. Then there are these crispy puris that we enjoy as a snack with tea or great to serve guests visiting us during Diwali.
Fried savory snacks are a huge part of Diwali. There are couple of reasons, it’s a New Year so we love to indulge, and fried savory foods stay fresh for long time, so if we have guests visiting us, we can easily serve these dry snacks with tea. It’s quite traditional.
The puris are made with all purpose flour and spiced with turmeric, black pepper, roasted cumin seeds, and then the dough is formed with oil and water. The dough is then rolled out into huge rounds, a paste of ghee and rice flour is applied on the rolled disc and then it’s rolled into spiral. Then they are cut into smaller discs (check pics), rolled out and fried.
The puris should be rolled out gently, so that they create layers after frying. If you roll out with pressure, the layers will suppress and not show after frying.
Another tip, the dough is literally thumped with a pestle to relax the gluten. I found such a huge difference in this simple step.
The only thing that can be adapted is the amount of spices to your liking, but if you want same results you will have to follow everything exactly.
Puris can be enjoyed as it is or they taste so good with a cup of tea or coffee.
Check the quick reel of the process !
Variations
Add dried kasuri methi, carom seeds aka ajwain, sesame seeds, some other spices like red chili powder, etc.
These can be made sweet also. I will share that recipe for some time later.
Storage
Store them in an airtight container at room temperature. I like to line the container with paper towel.
Farsi Puri – Flaky Crispy Snack
Ingredients
Dough
- 3 cups All-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp Cumin seeds roasted and coarsely ground
- ½ tsp turmeric powder
- 1 ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp confectioner ‘s sugar
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1/3 cup oil and ghee mix (equal parts)
- Oil to deep fry
Paste
- ½ cup rice flour ½ cup oil and ghee
Instructions
- Take flour, cumin seeds, turmeric powder, salt, confectioner’s sugar, black pepper in a mixing bowl. Give it a mix. Then add slightly warm ghee and oil mix, it should be equal parts. Add about ¼ cup warm water and knead it into dough. If you need more water, use tbsp at a time. The dough should be stiff not too soft. Leave the dough for few minutes.
- After few minutes, take something heavy like a pestle and pound the dough all over. This process relaxes the gluten and makes the dough soft and easier for rolling.
- Make a paste, from rice flour and warm ghee mixture. The paste should be warm when you spread it. So, if it cools down, then warm it up again slightly.
- Divide dough into three/four parts, roll out about 1 inch thick and spread the warm rice ghee paste. It should not be a thick paste, just enough that creates layers.
- Roll the dough on opposite side from you, into a spiral. It should be a thin spiral. Check pics
- Then, very softly cut equal pieces of dough into small rounds.
- Place the layered side up and roll out thin puris. Be gentle while rolling. If you put too much pressure, the layers will get suppressed. When you fry them, the layers will not form.
- Fry the puris on medium high heat until they have slight color to them. Turn them occasionally to fry on both sides. They should be cooked thoroughly from inside. They can stay raw from inside if the oil is too hot. So slow and medium heat is good.
- Remove them on an absorbent paper. Once all of them are fried and cooled down, only then store them in a tight container lined with paper napkins.