Question/Tip about Indian Pani Puris

We were running out of good basmati rice so today I stopped at Sabzi Mandi, an Indian grocery to find some (I bought Elephant aged basmati, about $15 for 10 pounds) -- I also got a bag of Pepper Masala Banana chips which our hostess at Thanksgiving had put out in a bowl. The hotness was very pleasing and surprising. The last time I had been there I saw an Indian lady who clearly was buying supplies for a dinner party buying several boxes of Pani Puri, so I figured they had to taste good and I bought a box. They are very cheap at $5 for 2 boxes. I ate 3 or four on the way to my office. It was like eating air that tastes good, they are a little larger than a golf ball and have the thickness of an eggshell so they disappear in your mouth, and I began to fantasize about how they would be, filled with crème chantilly, the Platonic essence of a cream puff, without the puff as a distraction.

It occurred to me that they are designed to be served filled with SOMETHING so I did a Google search and found numerous YouTube videos (I didn't get today's task finished when I was at work) that showed what they are used for in Indian cooking. Basically they are cracked open a little and filled with a kind of highly spiced potato salad -- boiled potatoes mashed, with chickpeas also mashed, and some spicing. Raw green peppers (like Jalapeños) chopped fine, a spoonful of cumin and crushed coriander seeds, some chat masala for crunch, chili powder, and some other ingredients. Then -- "pani" means water so you put the same spices into water and make a kind of spicy infusion. You put a spoonful or so of the potato salad into the eggshell puri and then, presumably, one adds some of the liquid just before eating. I also looked up the dish on Yelp and found a nearby restaurant (on Oaktree Road in Edison, which some call "Little Bombay") where a server makes up Pani Puri to order by filling them with "white chutney" whatever that is.

I have my film club party on Friday and I have been working on what kind of fusion filling I might put in these things to serve at the party. I mean, maybe foie gras and egg salad? Tonight we are having some good chili I made over the weekend so I am thinking of trying out a filling to try out the concept. We made some good flavorful mashed potatoes over the weekend. I brought back the leftovers (these were for a meal with our friend Karl) and I am thinking of heating up the mashed potatoes and putting a spoonful of warm mashed potatoes into a puri and then just before serving adding a spoonful of salsa.

So what would YOU put in these little puris if you were going to take them to a wine and cheese type party? And -- this is the "tip" part -- if you have an Indian grocery nearby (probably called Patel Cash and Carry or something like that) why don't you go pick up a couple of boxes and do your own experiment and let me know how it worked?

The proximity of Oaktree Road and its large population of recent Indian immigrants explains why I have so many students named Patel or Shah (and many other Indian names, most are from Gujarat or Mumbai) and why Edison has one of the few ethnically Indian congressmen in the House of Representatives. We have long known that a pilgrimage up there will result in some very excellent and authentic Indian food, plus you can buy yourself a sari or some gold bangle bracelets or nearly anything else you need from Indian culture.

PS if you are Googling these are also known as Golgappa or Gol gappa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panipuri

Very pleased with salsa pani puris! If Mexican restaurants learned about this they would ALL be doing it.

You know, tortilla chips are just the wrong shape. Scoops are one notch better. Pani Puris are Perfect!!

Here's what a now retired American restaurant critic had to say about pani puri, or pani poori, in his column in The Japan Times newspaper in Tokyo in 1992, back when traveling Indian businessmen swore that the world's best Indian chefs worked in that city. Wrote the critic:

"Many Indians who love fine food are convinced that the best Indian Restaurants in the world are in Tokyo. And some believe the best Indian restaurant in Tokyo is The Taj in Akasaka. Those in the know, swear that the best dish at The Taj is pani poori, or water bread.

"It doesn't logically follow that pani poori has to be the best Indian dish in the world. But to eat it is to believe it may be.

"This Indian beach-resort snack is a thin-crusted, puffed, golf-ball size fried bread accompanied by a side dish of coriander-flavored chickpeas and potatoes, and a green sauce of cumin-water and tamarind juice with black salt, ginger and chili powder. Its elaborate preparation illustrates the considerable hard work that goes into The Taj's first-rate Indian cuisine.

"First, the bread part of pani poori is made from flour and semolina or tapioca and salt. This is mixed into a hard dough, rolled into a thin layer, cut into small pieces and placed immediately on a dripping wet cloth, from which the moisture soaks into the semolina.

"The damp dough is then deep-fried in sizzling oil while the chef continuously stirs the pot to help puff the bread. Once cooked, it is drained and served cold and crisp with the chickpea-potato filling and green sauce, both of which also require laborious preparation.

"When pani poori is served, the trick is to punch a hole in it and fill it with chickpeas, potatoes and sauce. Then you gobble it in one blissful bite while savoring the mingled flavors of the spices.

"All this for 500 yen." [End of quote]

The restaurant critic, now in his dotage, admits he never made pani poori himself, but he swears he spent hours watching pani-poori being prepared at The Taj restaurant. So, he believes to this day, that's the way to make pani poori.

Thanks Clint, terrific description, and that is exactly what I am talking about.

Watching the YouTube videos it seems that making the puris is the hard part. You make a hard dough, take a piece about the size of a nickel, put it in a tiny puddle of oil and work it out to larger than a silver dollar. Then fry in deep fat. You can imagine how much easier it is to buy the puris already made! Especially since you might want to have, say 100 of these things on hand before you start making them up to serve. There are probably at least 20 in each plastic box at Sabzi Mandi, at 2 boxes for five dollars and they don't taste the least bit stale.

The potato mix isn't much harder than potato salad if you have the ingredients at hand, and the "sauce" or infusion contains the same ingredients except for the potatoes and chickpeas. I will have to make the "real" pani puri recipe some time.

But honestly tonight the mashed potatoes and salsa seemed pretty close to perfect. Louise was skeptical about potatoes with salsa and chili but she was impressed when she tasted it.

Very impressive that you found that piece from 1992. Did you just happen to have it on hand or did you dig it up on the internet?

I agree that the original must be an impressive dish.

Had it on hand, Frank.

This is funny and it conveys what these little things are all about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHmAVIZ--44

We have Bogart Bar tomorrow and I'm going to make up a batch using the Indian recipes from YouTube.

Potatoes, chickpeas, Jalapeño, cumin, etc. for the filling. A spicy savory dipping sauce. We'll see!

[Robin Garr]

I haven't tried them, but we're fortunate enough to have several Indian restaurants and groceries around town that will surely have them. I believe I'll be off on an exploratory run next week. Thanks for bringing this up, Frank!

Thanks for the reply Robin, I know you're into vegetarian stuff and these should be interesting.

I should report on the "real" pani puris that we had last night -- but first I want to mention that I think we enjoyed the ersatz puris with mashed potatoes and salsa even more than the original, and I think there is a huge potential in that direction, filling these crunchy little puffs with western food. There are things that should go together in one bite, that would be delicious in a crunchy little packet. I mentioned foie gras and, what, chopped HB egg and a dab of mayo? Black beans, sour cream, salsa.

At any rate, I had no idea what Chaat Masala was when I wrote the OP here. It turns out it is a blend of spices with salt and pepper, along the lines of Garam Masala. When you open the foil packet it smells like every Indian restaurant, a delicious savory smell. The filling for the puris that I used was a mix of semi-mashed potatoes plus chickpeas, with chaat masala, other spices, and a little minced red onion and minced jalapeño. It tasted familiar, I suppose I was reminded of Aloo Gobi.

I have never had anything like the Pani, it is intriguing but it wasn't instantly addicting. The Pani is the "water" sauce for the puris. It is clear and watery but the flavor is bright, fresh, and intense. You wouldn't want to drink a glass of it, it's too strong tasting, and a teaspoon of that on a pani puri punches up the spicy flavors in the potato filling dramatically. The filling and the Pani are both chilled well before serving, and the overall effect was -- this is something that is designed for a dry throat on a very hot day.

The surprising richness of the flavor comes from the construction -- you start by putting a lot of cilantro and mint leaves into a blender with chopped ginger and jalapeño. Put in a little water, blend to a paste, and then put the paste through a strainer. The initial extract was so hot I thought "Oh No, nobody will be able to eat these!" but there is quite a bit of dilution after that first step and you don't so much notice the hotness, instead it comes off as a brightness that goes with the fresh green flavor of the leaves.

This is closest to the recipe that I used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAJ2xCJOIoY

Frank, you nailed it when you wrote above that pani puri seems like something designed for a parched throat on a very hot day. I haven't checked this out since then but the Taj restaurant owner who explained the dish to me in Tokyo back in the early 1990s said it was typically sold and eaten not in restaurants but on beaches. In other words, it was beach food in the sense that street food is street food. Things may have changed since then, as in recent years I stumbled on pani puri in the Pabla restaurants, a Seattle area chain now closed.

I quoted the above description of pani puri from my 1992 book Tokyo Dining Out, a compilation of Dining Out column reviews in The Japan Times newspaper over previous years.

Well, there IS another chapter in this story . I mentioned pani puris in my class, and how I thought they would be good with western ingredients. Recently a Pakistani girl, a good student in the class, brought me in a batch she had made herself! Her filling was nearly the same as what I had made, but more whole chickpeas and no onion and hot pepper, and no chaat masala. The puris were the same brand so identical. But the pani was very different, there was a lot of it and I have written to ask her what was in it. Mine was green and smelled of mint and cilantro and tasted a bit of jalapeño. Hers is red and probably has some hing or asafoetida.

She didn't actually stuff the puris because they would have gotten soggy. When my son came I made up 3 or 4 for him and he said "wow!!" when he ate them. The student said that often, en famille, she would just pour a small glass of the pani and sip it as she ate the stuffed puris. Not a bad idea.

But my gears are still cranking about variations on the one bite dish. I have been attracted to that concept and for several high end dinners I have made Thomas Keller's "bacon and eggs" which is basically a soft boiled (poached) quail egg served in a silver teaspoon. What makes it spectacular -- you have to make a brunoise from carrots, turnips, and leek leaves. If you have ever made a real brunoise you know how much work that entails for very little product. You put the brunoise in a fine tea strainer and simmer in water for a few minutes until it is soft. Then you freeze thin cut bacon so it is workable and you cut several slices of "Lego" sized bacon and fry them up. Then put the mixed brunoise, which looks like multi-colored glittery sand, and the tiny bacon, in the silver spoon with the quail egg and some butter. Pop it in your mouth and -- perfection!! Breakfast!! And then it's gone.

One of my worst kitchen mistakes was the day after such a dinner, when I had quail eggs and brunoise left over. I wanted to warm them up for breakfast. A minute in the microwave and "pop! pop! pop!"

Brunoise and butter ALL over the interior of the microwave. Intact eggs explode in the microwave!

The panis I've run across have all been minty and green.