Bedmi Puri recipe, a popular Indian street food, wheat flour based bread stuffed with spiced lentils and served with a spicy potato curry.

There are two methods to prepare Bedmi Puri. One can choose any one of the methods, according to their availability of the ingredients.

The first method is to directly adding the ground raw urad dal paste along with spices to the whole wheat flour and semolina to make a slightly stiff dough. Small balls are pinched off the dough to be rolled into thick flattened puris and deep fried till crisp and golden brown.






The second method to make bedmi Kachori is by stuffing cooked dhuli urad dal mixture in the dough and rolling out into circles before deep frying.

Soak dhuli urad dal (black gram dal) in water for 2-3 hours, drain it and ground to a coarse paste. This paste should be mixed with a mixture of spices, green chilis, ginger and coriander leaves and sauteed in oil till rawness disappears and appears like a crumbly mixture.

This mixture is stuffed in whole wheat flour-semolina dough before being rolled out into slightly thick circles. The flattened puri is deep fried in oil till it puffs, turn golden brown and crisp.

Compared with the first method, this method is more labour intensive, where the uncooked urad dal mix is directly mixed with wheat flour to make a dough.





Also read: Gujarati Bajra vada recipe

Bedmi puri recipe

Prep time: 60 min
Cook time: 30 min
Serves: 5

Ingredients:

Wheat flour
Urad dal – 1 cup
Green chilis - 3-4
Ginger - 1" piece
Asafoetida - 1/2 tsp
Red chili powder - 1/2 tsp
Coriander powder - 1 tbsp
Fennel seeds powder - 1 tsp
Roasted cumin powder - 1/2 tsp
Amchur powder - 1/4 tsp
Garam masala powder - (3 cloves. 1/2" cinnamon stick, 1 black cardamom 5 black pepper corns)
Fresh coriander leaves - 1/4 cup (finely chopped)
Oil - 2-3 tbsps

For puri:

Whole wheat flour - 2 cups
Semolina - 1/2 cup
Salt - as required
Oil - 1 tbsp
Water - as required to prepare dough
Oil for deep frying

Method

1. Adding 2-3 tbsps of water and  grind the drained whole urad dal to a coarse paste. Make sure the past do not turn smooth.

2. Heat 3 tbsps oil in a heavy bottomed vessel. Add asafoetida and allow to sizzle. Add the ground urad dal paste and mix it, so that it do not stick to the vessel. Add the oil as per the requirement. After 5 minutes, add ginger-green chili paste, red chili powder, fennel seeds powder, coriander powder, roasted cumin powder, amchur powder and garam masala powder and mix vigorously, till it appears like  crumbly mixture. After it gets the loose crumbly texture, add the chopped coriander leaves and mix. Turn off heat. Set aside, this urad dal mixture in a separate bowl.

3. Add the whole wheat flour, semolina, salt, oil and water in a large bowl and make a slightly firm dough. [At this stage, you can even add the cooked urad dal mixture,  along with the wheat flour, while making the dough. Make lemon sized balls of the dough and roll out into 5"-6" flattened circles/puris and deep fry till crisp and golden brown]

4. If cooked urad dal mixture is used as a stuffing, you will have to make a firm dough with whole wheat flour, semolina, salt, oil and water. Pinch out small lemon sized balls from the puri dough and roll each into 3" discs. In the centre of each disc, place a tbsp of the stuffing. Form a cup shape, bringing the edges of the disc, together and enclose. Dust some flour on the working surface and roll the ball into a flattened 5"-6" circle. Prepare puris with the rest of the dough and set aside.

5. Take a wide cooking vessel and heat oil on a high flame,  for deep frying. Once the oil gets high heat, reduce flame to medium high and carefully slide a rolled out puri into the hot oil. Press the puri gently with a ladle and allow it to puff. For a couple of seconds, increase flame and gently flip to the other side. It turns golden brown within few seconds and then remove the bedmi puri from the oil and place on absorbent paper. Follow the same procedure with the rest of the rolled out puris.

6. Your bedmi puris are ready to serve now and Aloo sabzi would be the best combination, to have these delicious puris.

Tips

The uncooked urad dal paste can be mixed with the spices, green chili-ginger paste and coriander leaves directly with the whole wheat flour and make a firm dough. Roll into round circles of 5" and deep fry till golden brown.      OR

The ground urad dal paste can be cooked along with the spices etc and add this cooked mixture directly to the whole wheat flour and make a firm dough. Roll into round circles of 5" and deep fry till it gets into golden brown colour.       OR

You can cook the ground urad dal paste along with the spices etc, and use it as a stuffing.

By Phani Ch