I always loved the puran poli my mom made. Some people prepare it as paratha and I always have the urge to tell these people that puran poli and puran paratha are two different things and Poli as name suggest should be thing and soft. I got the recipy for this one from mom and tried it earlier this year. I could get the taste, but not the thinness and softness the way mom can. So few months back when I was in pune, I learnt the tactics to get the right puran poli and here i am sharing it especially for dasara. Wishing you all Happy Dasara.


Ingredients
4 Cup Chana Daal
3 Cup Jaggery
2 Cup Wheat Flour
1 Spoon Maida
1 Cup Rice Powder
1/2 Cup Oil

Method

• Mix maida and wheat flour and make the very loose dough out of it.
• Put the dough in the steel vessel and press in using fingers to make valleys and hills (:) I love to do this)
• Pour in the oil so that all valleys are filled in with the oil. Keep aside for atleast couple of hours
• Cook chana daal in pressure cooker
• Remove the excess water and put it into pan. (The excess water is used for preparing Katachi Aamati)
• Add jaggery to the pan and cook till mixture is thick
• Strain the mixture through Puran Yantra. Keep it aside to cool down
• While Making puran polis, Heat the tawa on low flame
• Make the puran ball of twice the lemon size.
• Take dough of lemon size and stretch it so that its big enough to cover the puran ball. Close the puran ball with this dough
• Press the ball with palms to flatten it. The elastic cover if goes outwards, press it back inwards gently.
• Apply generous quantity of rice floor on to the rolling plate. Dip the ball into the rice flour and and start rolling the poli.
• Intermittently keep checking that the poli is not sticking to the rolling plate and apply rice floor now and then.
• Rolling should be done very softly and always in outward direction.
• Cook the poli on the tawa over low flame. Cook the one side completely and then turn over and cook the other side. Again turn over, fold it and serve

Notes
The elasticity of the dough helps in making puran poli's cover softer and thinner so make sure the dough is very loose and was let to mix properly by keeping aside for enough time.
While rolling puran poli, start with smaller one, try it out and then gradually increase the size till you are confident. Use generous amount of rice powder initially which later you can reduce to amount you are comfortable with.
While checking if poli is stuck to the rolling plate, put the palm with fingers wide open and tilt the plate to get the poli on your palm. Same while transfering it to tawa. Never try to pick with just fingers, its a delicate afair.
If you see that there is lot of dough on sides of poli, it means you used more than needed dough, so reduce the quantity next time. The best quantity is half or little less of puran.
rolling only in outward direction helps in spreading puran outwards and thus uniform thickness as well as the cover of the puran wont break.
Also the last but not least tip, its very difficult and tidious process, so dont be disheartened if you dont get the BEST results at first attempt you will start getting better. I have tried to point out all minute details my mom told me, so I hope that will help.