The puri (or poori) are flat breads made from capati flour, or wholewheat flour. Some recipes use a combination of white and capati flour, and that’s perfectly acceptable. Use half and half if doing so.
These take a little practice, but the deeply fragrant topping of prawn, spice and tomato are a cinch to make and are wonderful to include as part of an Indian banquet.
250gr chapati flour
1/2tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tbs clarified butter
vegetable oil, for frying
water for binding
2 tbs yogurt
For the prawns
16 raw king prawns, peeled and deveined
2 large tomatoes, diced (only if really ripe otherwise 1/2 a tin of tomatoes )
1 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tbs garamasala
1 birds eye chili
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp sugar
handful of coriander leaves
juice of half a lemon
a little salt
Pour your flour into a bowl, make a well in the centre, add the salt and add the yogurt and 2 tbs water. Slowly add more water and mix with your hand till you have a soft and pliable dough.
Combine the clarified butter into the dough and knead again. The whole process takes about fifteen minutes. Cover the bowl and rest for half an hour.
Heat a frying pan and add 2 tbs oil. Fry the onion till translucent, add the ginger, chili and garlic and fry for a further thirty seconds. Now add the tomatoes, cumin, sugar, lemon and garamasala and cook for a further two minutes. Finally carefully fold in the prawns, put a lid on the pan and cook till the prawns are pink, between two and three minutes. Turn off the heat.
Tear off a quarter of the dough and roll into a ball and then flatten into a disc. Repeat until you have all four ready to deep fry. At this point, turn the prawns back onto a very low heat.
Heat a frying pan with an inch of oil. When sizzling hot carefully slide a poori into the oil. Turn over after a minute and cook till a nice golden colour. Place each on a platter, top with the prawn mixture and scatter over some coriander leaves.
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