Panipuri : The Most Popular Street Food Of India

Panipuri is one of the most popular street food in India. In every streets of India you can find a panipuri vendor. Panipuri is also known as   golgappa or phuchka. Panipuri is  a kind of snack that consists of round shaped hollow balls (puri), spicy mashed potatoes with chickpeas and spicy tamarind water.

The round shaped hollow balls are very crispy, which are stuffed with spicy mashed potatoes and then dipped into the spicy tamarind water.

These hollow crispy balls are made from all purpose flour(maida) and semolina(suji). Actually for me it's very difficult to make perfect crisp balls at home. Therefore I sometime bought the 'papad' for making panipuri hollow balls from the store. You only need to fry the papad in oil. These hollow puris in the picture were bought from the store and I just fried those in oil to get perfect round shaped crispy hollow balls.

Making spicy mashed potatoes is very easy. Boiled potatoes are mashed with different Indian spices and boiled chickpeas. This spicy mashed potatoes is used as a stuffing. The round shaped hollow flour balls are stuffed with spicy mashed potatoes and then dipped into the spicy tamarind water.

A sour, sweet and spicy tamarind water is prepared from tamarind pulp by adding different spices. Spicy mashed potatoes and spicy tamarind water can be prepared in many ways. In this post I have shared my way of making panipuri mashed potatoes and tamarind water.

Recipe for Spicy Mashed Potatoes :

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 boil potatoes
• 1/2 cup boiled chickpeas 
• 1 chopped onion (optional) 
• 1/2 tsp cumin powder 
• 1/2 tsp red chilli powder 
• 1/2 tsp chat masala 
• 1 tbsp finely chopped coriander  leaves 
• Salt to taste 

METHOD:

1. Peel potatoes and in a large bowl mashed it. 
2. Add all the other ingredients and mix everything well. 

Recipe for Spicy Tamarind Water 

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup tamarind pulp 
• 2 tbsp sugar or jaggery 
• 1/2 tsp cumin powder 
• 1/2 tsp red chilli powder 
• 1/2 tsp chat masala 
• 1/2 tbsp finely chopped mint leaves 
• 1/2 tsp salt 
• 3 cups of cold water 

METHOD:

1. In a large bowl take tamarind pulp. 
2. Add water and all the remaining ingredients. 
3. Mix everything well. 

How to serve Panipuri 

1. Here I have used ready-made  panipuri papad. I have just fried those in oil. 
2. Take one by one round hollow crispy panipuri balls. Make small holes in the center of each balls by pressing with your fingers. 
3. Stuff a tbsp of spicy mashed potatoes. 
4. Dip each stuffed panipuri balls into the spicy tamarind water.
5. Serve. 

Panipuri Business 

Selling panipuri can be a good low cost business. Anyone can start selling panipuri in any corner of an Indian street. Panipuri making can also be a good business indeed. For making panipuri in large scale, you need to buy a panipuri making machine which may cost around 50,000 rupees. With the help of such machine, one can make up-to 4000 panipuri balls in just one hour. You don't require a very large area to start this business. A small corner of your house is enough. You can sell those panipuri balls to the panipuri street vendors.