I had this spinach and carrot puri recipe in mind as an Independence Day special recipe for quite some time now. But I had not managed to make it over any of the past weekends. Weekends because Kalpesh would be around to shoot them. He is very critical of the pics clicked by me and insists on clicking pics of each recipe. So this carrot and spinach puri recipe almost did not have happen but for the last minute motivation on a Friday, and rock solid support and help from my mother-in-law.
After Devansh went to school in the morning, I asked my MIL “I want to make colored puri for an Independence Day special recipe that I want to post tomorrow. Will you help me out?” I explained to her my concept, the method I had in mind, and the ingredients–after that she completely took over. I fried the puri and clicked snaps, she did everything else–from kneading the dough to rolling out the puri. She also enthusiastically gave suggestions for the arrangement.
We managed to do this in the one and a half hour we had between the time Devansh goes to school and the maid comes to wash the utensils. Making puri doesn’t take so much time but clicking snaps at practically each step does.
I got lots of tips about frying puris from my MIL, which I have shared along with the recipe. The puris turned out well and tasted really yummy. Me and the two moms (birth mom and in-law mom) loved them. I kept some dough aside and made puris for Devansh as his evening snack. Even he loved them. These puris would be super as tiffin food too, can be made ahead of time and carried in the tiffin as they last long. You can experiment with different colors using natural ingredients like beet root and keep it as a snack for birthday parties or picnics.
So far I haven’t used refined flour (maida) while cooking anything for Devansh, and I wasn’t keen to use this time either. So I settled for not getting white color in the puris and used wheat flour for all three layers. You can serve the puris with curd to get in all the tricolors. These puris also taste great with green chutney. I hope you like this puri (poori) recipe and your kiddos enjoy the naturally colored puris.
Puri Recipe | Spinach and Carrot
Ingredients
- 1 and half cup wheat flour
- Approx 4 tbsp blanched and pureed spinach
- Approx 4 tbsp steamed and pureed carrot or pressure cooked
- 1 pinch of turmeric powder haldi
- 1 pinch of asafoetida hing
- 1/4th tsp ajwain carom seeds
- salt to taste
- 5-6 tbsp oil for kneading the dough
- 1/2 to 3/4th cup oil for frying
Instructions
- Add salt and ajwain in wheat flour, and mix it.
- Separate the flour in three portions.
- Add spinach purée in one portion, and carrot purée and haldi in another portion.
- Add very little water in the third portion. (Puri dough needs to be stiffer than the chapati dough. So add less water than you would while kneading chapati dough. Don’t add water in the green and orange dough; the moisture in the purées should suffice.)
- Heat 5-6 tbsp oil, when it heats up add hing and turn off heat.
- Add 1/3rd oil in each portion of the flour and knead stiff dough.
- Make two balls of each colored dough.
- Roll out a roti of approx. 6 inches in diameter using 3 different colored balls of dough.
- Now lay down the green roti on the chakla (wooden board) and spread a bit of oil all over it.
- Dust the green roti with a bit of flour and then lay the plain wheat roti on top of it.
- Spread a bit of oil over the second roti and dust it with flour.
- Lay the orange-colored roti on top of the second roti.
- Roll out all three rotis together to form a slightly bigger roti. (Approx. 10 inches in diameter.)
- Now roll the 3-layered roti tightly. (If you make a loose roll, there will be gaps between the different layers in the puri.)
- Cut the roll in 1-inch pieces.
- Lay each piece on chakla with the different layers visible from the top, and roll it with the rolling pin to form a puri.
- Repeat steps 8-16 to roll out puris using all the dough.
- Poke the rolled out puris using a fork. (This will prevent the puris from puffing up while frying. If the puris puff up the different colors will blend and not be distinct.)
- Heat a kadai and when the oil is sufficiently hot, add one puri in it. (To check whether the oil is hot or not, I put a wooden spoon in the oil. If bubbles form near the spoon, it means that it is properly hot.)
- Fry the puri till it gets properly cooked, use the zara (slotted ladle spoon) to gently splash some oil on top of the puri to ensure the top side cooks properly too. (I didn’t flip the puri while frying as the side at the bottom tends to brown a bit, and I wanted to retain the colors.)
- Fry all the puris one after the other and lay them on a tissue paper to blot out excess oil.
- Serve them hot or cold, with curd or pickle. Grownups can even have them with tea.
Notes
- If you want to make stiff puris to store them as dry snacks:
- Poke the puris using a fork.
- Roll the puris and let them dry for an hour or two before frying them.
- Fry the puris on low heat. (First ensure that the oil is sufficiently hot to fry the puris and then lower the heat.)
