Mouth Watering Pani Puri

The one word that starts filling your mouth with water, that brings a smile on your face, and the one that girls crave the most……………………Any guesses?……………………………… It is none other than our favourite street food “Pani Puri”.

I do not think there is anyone who can deny not eating or liking it.

Pani puri or fuchka or gupchup or golgappa or Pani ke Patake is a type of snack that originated in the Indian subcontinent and is one of the most common street foods in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Well, it is also famous in the US, Canada, London, Australia, and the rest of the world. Thanks to Indians who have spread across the world sharing the food joy with others.

It is round ball shaped hollow puri, filled with chickpeas, potato, onion, coriander chutney and drenched with hot spicy mint flavoured water & sour tamarind-jaggery chutney. This is the standard form of it and has multiple variants as you travel North to South or East to West. I have tried it in a couple of cities including Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Lucknow, and other cities, but none of them taste the same. I liked the Mumbai version sitting on Chowpatty, swallowing through a couple of plates and ending with a sukha puri. The fun is to hold the packed puri between your two fingers and pop it in your mouth and eat the entire puri at once, leading to an explosion of spices and flavors in your mouth.

Pani puri is one of the most popular street foods, it is currently made available in some upscale restaurants and has given some modern twists replacing chutney water spiced vodka shots, chicken fillings, guacamole fillings, etc. But none of them beats the taste which you get on the street. At any moment of time there would be at least 5 -6 people to whom a pani puri wala bhaiya would be serving. The most amazing thing is watching the speed at which he serves them, and tracks who needs teekha, meetha, sukha & also the number of puris each one had galloped. I feel pity for those who stand behind those eating and waiting for their turn to come. Generally girls are very decent and nice when it comes to eating food, but this dish is an exception one, you can see their entire teeth when they to open to swallow the puri 😉

Ingredients (Basic form of Pani Puri)

1. a)       Get ready made puris, it will take more effort to make them.
2. b)     Cut onions in small pieces.
3. c)       Boil potato and chickpeas separately and smash (optional) them.
4. d)     Add some salt and red chilli powder to mashed potato and chickpeas.
5. e)     Spicy Chutney (generally served cold)
6.       Fresh coriander and Min in equal quantities.
7.       Fresh couple of green chillies.
8.       Zeera/Cumin powder
9.       Chaat masala
10.       Lemon
11.       Black pepper
12.       Salt
13. f)       Meethi chutney
14.       Tamarind
15.       Jaggery or Date
16.       Black Pepper
17.       Salt

But as per my experience, you don’t get the same taste at home as you get on the streets. This is the one food I have been missing a lot in COVID and I am happy to finally get my hands on it.

Please share your experience of your best pani puri and in which city.