Pooris and Potato Curry - Indian puffed bread with potato curry

"I don't like pooris" said no Indian kid ever! My husband and I were the same and so are my children.  What I also know is that my baby girl came back from school one day and said that her friends made fun of her lunch but she ate it all anyway.  It was years later that I found out though she ate the pooris, she was really traumatized by the experience and wrote about her experience in an article which came to my attention.  In her article she calls the potato curry a florescent yellow curry - and so this is what I think of it as in my mind as well!

But fluorescent or not, she still loves them and  will eat them in the blink of an eye if I made them.  So without further ado, let us see how to make this curry!

For Potato curry:

Ingredients:

3 large potatoes – boiled, skinned and roughly mashed

1 large onion – sliced and cut in half again

4-5 green chillies – slit lengthwise

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

½ teaspoon chilli powder (optional)

1 sprig curry leaves

2 tablespoons oil

½ teaspoon mustard seeds

½ teaspoon urid dal (optional)

Salt to taste

Method:

Heat oil in a saucepan, add mustard seeds.  When they crackle, add the urid dal if using and saute till it goes golden. Next add the curry leave, sliced onions, green chillies and saute till the onions are transparent.  

Add turmeric powder and chilli powder if using and the rough mashed potatoes.  Mix thoroughly, add ½ a cup of water and salt to taste. Let this cook for 6 to 8 minutes.

You should get a potato gravy with a few pieces of potato still holding shape.

Serve hot with pooris or chappaties.

Note: If serving with Appam, you can add ½ a cup of milk after switching stove off to get a creamy appam stew.  My mother in law used to make this and it was delicious.

For Pooris:

3 cups atta flour (you can buy this from the Indian grocer or Coles)

1 cup ragi flour (this is a variation – you do not have to add this if you don’t want to.  Instead just make with 4 cups of atta flour)

Warm water to mix dough

Extra flour for dusting

Vegetable oil for deep frying

Mix the flours together.  Make a well in the middle and add warm water little by little and mix in with the flour.  Add enough water and mix flour so it is moist but not wet.  Knead well for 5 to 6 minutes.  Leave under a wet tea towel to rest for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, make small balls out of the dough.  

Next, roll out the pooris in little circles of around 8 to 9 cms in diameter and about a mm thick. 

Heat oil and deep fry.  The oil must be hot enough so that the poori can balloon out into little balls.

Drain on paper towels.

Serve hot.  4 cups of the flour yielded approximately 30 pooris.

Serving size is 6 - 8 pooris per adult for a main meal.