Vella Puri

       
           As the name suggests, it's a puri but why vella(white) puri, no clue, might be the white dot-like things that appear on the puri when it's fried. The dish is popular in my husband's family, one of his favorite tiffins and I got the recipe from his sister. The traditional recipe calls for soaking parboiled rice for an hour, grinding it coarsely with tuvar dal, red chillies, coriander seeds without adding much water, adding cumin seeds and making puris, sounds like too much work eh.. Came up with this short-cut, no regrets taste-wise..


Need To Have

• Idli Rava - 2 cups
• Rice Flour - 1 cup
• Tuvar Dal - 1/4 cup
• Coriander Seeds - 1.5 tablespoons
• Cumin Seeds - 1 teaspoon
• Dry Red Chillies - 4
• Curry Leaves - 1 sprig 
• Oil For Deep Frying

Method

          Soak idli rava with just enough water for 2 hrs. Soak the tuvar dal for the same time, grind it with the chillies, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and curry leaves. Add this to the idli rawa along with the rice flour, salt and mix it to form like puri dough. Grease a plastic sheet with oil, take a ball of dough, flatten it into puris, slide it into the oil. 

          This puri takes some time to rise up in the oil, once it rises, press slightly like we do for the regular puris, to puff it up. It takes slightly longer to cook than the usual puris, cook on both sides and remove. At home this puri is served with a tomato chutney and an onion-garlic raitha.

Tomato Chutney
          Saute onions, tomatoes and red chillis, grind, season it with mustard seeds, urad dal, asafoetida and curry leaves.

Onion-Garlic Raitha
           Season oil with mustard and curry leaves, add  an onion and two cloves of garlic, both of them sliced finely, saute them well, add turmeric and chilli powder, mix well for a minute. Cool and mix in curd and salt.

Note
If the idli rawa is very coarse then reduce it to 1 cup and add 2 cups of rice flour.
If the final dough is sticky add little more rice flour.
When grinding the tuvar dal, let it be to a chutney consistency.