Gluten free Puran Puri – Chapattis made with sweet lentil stuffing
Usually Indian breads such as chappatis, parathas, puris and puran puris are made from wheat flour. The gluten in them makes it easy for anyone to roll them out and make tasty breads. However, lots of people have to follow a gluten free diet for health reasons. Millet flour rotlas and chick pea flour pancakes are a good alternative for them but often they crave chappatis and rotis similar to the ones made by wheat flour. I got sent samples for some gluten free Chapati flour from Eurostar and wanted to try cooking with it. I have never used gluten free flour before but was looking forward to using it make some puran puris. Puran puris are chappatis stuffed with a sweet lentil filling. They work really well with normal chappati flour but were a bit challenging with the gluten free dough.
Course: Indian Bread
Cuisine: Indian
Author: Mina Joshi
Ingredients
Ingredients the stuffing
1cuptoor dall (The toor dall is often called tuver dall, pigeon peas, Congo peas or gungo peas
½cupcup sugar (more if you have a sweet tooth)
½tspfinely ground cardamom
½tspground nutmeg
8-10strands saffron
1tblsclarified butter, ghee or vegan alternative
Ingredients for the dough
1cupgluten free flour
3tblscooking oil
some ghee or butter to spread on the puran puris (vegans can use Flora or something similar)
Instructions
First make the dough so that it has a chance to rest – Sieve the flour and make a well in the middle and add the oil. Using warm water, mix the flour well. Make sure that you pour the water in small amounts so that the dough doesn’t get too soft. With the gluten free dough, I had to add a lot of more water to get it to the same level as a normal chappati dough. Take a small teaspoon of oil in your palms and knead until the dough feels pliable – almost like “play dough”. Cover the dough and let it rest.
Wash the toor dall with warm water and cook it in a saucepan with 3 cups of water. Allow this to cook on a high gas until it starts to boil. Reduce the heat to medium and allow it to cook. You need to allow the toor dall to cook without having to add extra water. The dall needs to cook until soft.
Once the dall has cooked, add the sugar. The sugar will melt and the dall will start to look runny. Add the cardamon, saffron and nutmeg.
Mix well and allow this to cook at a gentle heat, stirring occasionally until the liquid evaporates and you get a thick mixture. Add the ghee(or vegan alternative) and allow the mixture to cool slightly.
Divide the Chappati dough into a small balls – nearly the size of small golf balls and divide the stuffing too into small balls of similar size.
Gluten free dough was hard to roll like normal chapatis or puran puris so I rolled out two circles and spread the stuffing on one chappati and topped it with the second chappati. I pressed the ends of the two chappatis and rolled them out ready to cook on the griddle. Once cooked, I spread them with butter and served them hot.
Conclusion
This was the best option to enjoy the puran puris. The puran puri’s were soft and tasty. Anyone looking for gluten free option would not be disappointed cooking with this flour.In conclusion, this flour is a great replacement to the normal wheat chappati flour for people who are looking for gluten free options. The chappatis are a bit difficult to get perfectly round but they turn out soft and taste great when they are fresh. The leftover ones weren’t that soft so my suggestion would be to enjoy them fresh.