Pani Puri Is The Favourite #StreetFood of India

Pani Puri is the favourite snack of Mumbaites. It is a fried hollow and round puri filled with sweet and spicy water along with tamarind chutney, potato, chickpeas and chaat masala. in Mumbai, you get to see ragda (the mashed white beans) stuffing with sweet tamarind chutney.

Many people will complain of bad stomach but still they cannot resist it. It is actually favoured all over India although it is know by different names in different cities.

In North India it is known as Gol Gappa and is made from a mixture of potato, chickpea, chutney and served with tangy water. The puris have the extra crunch that will leave you wanting for more.

In the Eastern states of India like Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal it is known as Puchka. A Puchka is made with a mixture of boiled gram and mashed potatoes as filling, the chutney is tangy and the water is spicy. It is slightly bigger as compared to our normal puris. It is made of wheat flour.

 In the interior parts of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh it is known as Pakodi. Green chillies and lot of mint is added to the water and sev is an interesting addition to it in some places.

 In Aligarh, UP it is known as Padaka.

In Odisha, parts of Bihar, Jharkhand Chhattisgarh, Hyderabad, and Telangana they are called GupChup. White peas or chickpea is added as a stuffing along with spicy-tangy water and boiled potatoes.

In Uttar Pradesh it is called Pani key Patashe

 In Central India, including parts of UP and Rajasthan it is called Paani key Batashe or Patashi. It is the regular Golgappa with essential potato filling.

In Hoshangabad in Madhya Pradesh pani puri is referred to as Tikki though it has no relation with a tikki. The puris of Hoshangabad's tikkis are slightly smaller.

In Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Nepal it refers as 'Phulki'. There's no difference in the preparation and it is only the name that differs.

During the years when I lived in Canary Islands, I would spend hours making small size crispy puris that would take just minutes to finish. I would make at least 100 puris in one sitting, shaping each puri with a small round steel bowl. It was a fun activity although it would take too much time..sometimes all afternoon. Family enjoyed it so it was worth an effort.

In India there is really no need to spend so much time in the kitchen because it is available at every street corner. But my family who live abroad still don’t have this luxury of eating this snack on the roadside, although at many private meetings and family gathering, it is a common snack. So it’s a blessing if you can find somebody to get a packed version

Therefore I was very happy to see this product in the market.

This is very well packed container and it includes puris, fried bhoondi, tamarind chutney and a packet of spices that can mixed in the water to make pani puri water.

I immediately opened the packet. Everybody made their own serving of breaking each hollow puri, stuff the pocket with bhoondi, tamarind chutney and filled it to the rim with pani puri water and immediately pop the whole puri in one go into the mouth.

The puri breaks apart flooding the mouth with spicy, sweet and sour water, for a minute you might  even look like a monkey as you begin to swallow, you might even choke at small crisp pieces of puri, tears fill up the eyes but overall effect is pure pleasure. We all loved it.

This product is available in Pune. I have placed an order, waiting for it to arrive, I am planning to send this box to Spain for my family who love this a lot,

There is legend associated with the origin of pani puris. This is how it goes:

In the epic Mahabharata, a newly-wedded Draupadi returns home to be given a task by her mother-in-law Kunti. The Pandavas were on exile and Kunti wanted to test if her new daughter-in-law would be able to manage with the scarce resources. So she gave Draupadi some leftover potato sabzi and just enough wheat dough to make one puri, instructing her to make food that would satisfy the hunger of all five of her sons. It is believed that this was when the new bride invented pani puri. Impressed with her daughter-in-law’s ingenuity, Kunti blessed the dish with immortality.

Source: The Better India