#1: ##6 Baked puris

Hello everyone! Today I have ventured into another area altogether. While I was wondering what to make of whatever material was available with me, I knew craft was a far fetched idea today :D .. I had to do something else. Maybe a photoshop image? But I quickly ruled that option out because I was not thinking of anything new. So I decided to create something totally different.

Today's creation is a dish! It is called puris (crispy wheat flour chips). Puris are a very popular fried snack for some Indians and is usually had with hot chai tea. But I modified the way these are prepared. Usually these are deep fried but I wanted a healthy alternative so decided to bake them. With some patience and hard work I have managed to make it and I must admit while it is not mouth watering, it is pretty good and definitely filling and healthy. For those who are interested in controlling their cholesterol or their waist-line or both, this might be a very good option for snack because apart from it being healthy, you can store this preparation for around 5-10 days depending on the temperature of the stored location. Do not refrigerate but make sure to store it in a dry air-tight container and keep it in a cool place.

Here is the basic way of preparing these puris. Once you know this, you can prepare as many variations as you like.

For each cup of whole wheat flour, use one tablespoon of oil and half teaspoon of salt. With some water, usually a little more than half cup of water, knead the floor into a hard dough. It is not like the usual bread dough, you would have to apply pressure to poke your finger in the dough. But do make sure that the dough does not crack up. It should be bound properly. Apart from salt, you can add turmeric powder, red chilli powder, oregano or methi (fenugreek) leaves or palak (spinach) leaves or crushed green chillies, crushed garlic, crushed ginger, chilli flakes or just whatever spice you can think of :)

After the dough is ready, divide them into roughly 20 small pieces and roll them thin and round using a rolling pin. Once these are ready, preheat the oven at 400F or 200C. In the meanwhile, grease these puris with very slight oil on both the sides. Once the oven is preheated, put all the puris in a baking plate. Make sure they do not overlap on each other. It takes around 7-10 mins for them to get baked properly. Make sure to toss them once while they are being baked. Do not let them turn brown if you really want to enjoy the flavour but don't take them off too soon else they won't be crispy.

I sprinkled a bit of red chilli powder and dried mango powder to make them tangy and spicy after they were ready but you can skip this if you like.

And as per the tradition, after describing my story and method, here is the picture of today's creation.

You can notice one of the puris is bitten off, that is the one I tasted to let you know how the taste was... ;)