Smart snacking
Farsi, Jira, Palak and Beetroot Puri: Which One, and When
I want something to put out for guests that isn’t just another bowl of sev.
The flat, flaky half of a farsan box. What separates the four puris we make, which of them are actually coloured with vegetables, and what to put them out with.
· Updated · 3 min read
Every farsan box needs something flat in it. Strands are for eating out of a bowl; puri is for putting on a plate, handing to somebody, and eating with tea without needing a napkin for your fingers.
All four of ours are the same idea — a rolled, layered dough cut small and fried until it shatters — and the differences are in what goes into the dough.
Farsi Puri — the plain one, and the best one
Flaky, layered, barely spiced, and it dissolves rather than crunches. The layers come from working fat into the dough, which is why a good farsi puri is slightly rich and a bad one is just a cracker.
It is the default for guests because it goes with everything and offends nobody. It is also the one that suffers most from being stale — a soft farsi puri has lost its entire reason for existing.
Jira Puri — roasted cumin
The same base with roasted cumin through it. Cumin roasted before it goes in, not raw, which is the difference between a warm background note and a raw seed you keep finding. It is the one to eat with chai, and the one that goes best with a chutney.
Palak Puri — actual spinach
Spinach worked into the dough. Which means, and this is worth saying plainly, the colour is a muted green, not a bright one. A vividly green snack is coloured; a real spinach one looks like cooked spinach, because that is what it is.
Beetroot Puri — actual beetroot
Same principle, ruby rather than green. Beetroot brings a faint earthy sweetness against the salt, which makes it the most distinctive of the four to eat and the prettiest on a plate. The colour dulls a little with frying — a fluorescent pink one is not beetroot.
What to put out with them
- Chai. Farsi puri and jira puri were designed for it.
- A chutney or a sambharo — a raw papaya sambharo turns a plate of puri into something people stand around and finish.
- Curd, for anyone who finds the box too dry. Puri and thick curd is an underrated combination.
- A mixed plate — one strand, one flat, one sweet. Puri is the flat, and a gathiya is the strand.
Keeping them crisp
Puri is the most fragile farsan we make — thin, flat, all surface. It is the first thing in a box to go soft and it is the reason we seal packs the hour they come off the fire. Once it is open, a jar rather than the packet, and everything in the storage guide applies double.
What is farsi puri made of?
Flour, fat, salt and a little ajwain, rolled in layers and fried. The fat worked through the dough is what gives it the flakiness — it is closer in technique to a pastry than to a cracker.
Is palak puri healthy?
It contains real spinach, and it is still a fried snack. The spinach is there for flavour and colour, not for a nutrition claim, and we would rather say that than imply otherwise.
Which puri lasts longest?
Jira and farsi, marginally. The vegetable ones carry slightly more moisture from the spinach and beetroot, so they are best eaten sooner.
See the puri we are frying Fried to order, in 500 g and 1 kg packs