A tale of our beloved Pani Puri, A hollow puri of sooji or flour or wheat flour, stuffed with mashed potatoes and dunked into flavoured water, gulped before it gets saggy. Pani puri is one of the famous street foods of Indore, and nearly every indori is crazy about it. A spicy, tangy and sweet all in one bite, eating Pani Puri is nothing less than a divine experience for food lover.
The street food of India, Pani Puri is not only famous in india, even people of other countries also relish the flavour of pani puri. Once when a famous British chef Tom Aikens during his visit to Mumbai, was asked which Indian dish he had liked the most, his reply was “Round pastry cases with spicy sauce (Pani- Puri)”.
This little pop into mouth watery snack has long fan following throughout the country, although it is available in different avatars. Every part has its own adoption and reinvention of it. Pani Puri changes its name as easily as it is a Con artist of the street food community.
Read Below the Great Indian List of Pani Puri
1) Pani Puri
The first name of this popular street food is Pani puri, it is famous with this name in the states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and even in parts of Nepal. Although the name is same but the taste varies.
In Mumbai
Source: beyondmountains
In Mumbai it is hot ragda, the paste of chickpeas stuffed into a puri, with imli ki chutney and dunked into cold water, its combination of hot and cold.
In Madhya Pradesh
Source: wikimedia
In Madhya Pradesh, mashed potatoes are stuffed into it. In Gujarat diced potatoes with boiled moong, chutney of dates and boondi in pani is the traditional mix.
In Karnataka
Source: blogspot
In Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, they add onion to enhance the taste.
2) Gup Chup
Source: wikimedia
Don’t get confused with the sweet Gup Chup you eat in indore, it is a name given in Odisha, South Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Hyderabad, and Telangana. The name is given because of the sound made while eating, being silent. The filling of Gup Chup consist of chick peas without any addition of potatoes.
3) Paani ke Patashe
Source: team-bhp
Paani ke Patashe, both the ingredient of dish are mentioned in the name itself, pani puri is famous with the name of pani ke patashe in Haryana and in some part of MP as well. The taste is quite similar just the name is different.
4) Gol Gappe
Source: wikimedia
The popular street food of Northern India, Gol Gappe; this is the third name of Pani Puri. Except Haryana, in Northern India it is referred as Gol Gappe. The popularity of this street food can be measured by the number of stalls lining on every street. Here the Gol Gappe are filled with potato and chick pea mix, and dunked in chilled water. North Indian people love to have the puris made of Sooji, which are not exactly round in shape but slightly longer.
5) Puchka
Source: ytimg
The second famous name of Pani puri is Puchka, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and even in Bangladesh it is popular with the name of Puchka. It is slightly different from the puri as it is bigger in size, darker in color and filled with the mixture of boiled gram and mashed potatoes, added with the tangy chutney and spicy water.
6) Padaka
Source: wordpress
If you visit Aligarh of Uttar Pradesh, you will definitely find the stalls of Pani Puri lining there but the vendors would ask you to have Padaka & thats the sixth name of our lovely Pani Puri in our list.
7) Phulki
Source:ytimg
Some part of Gujarat, the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh and some region of Nepal call Pani puri as Phulki. Although this name is very rarely used now & sounds more of the feminist version of the same, but there is not much difference in the preparations.
8) Pakodi
Source: indiatimes
No, we are not talking about the famous pakodas, in some interior parts of Gujarat Pani Puri is called as Pakodi. The preparation is similar to Pani Puri but the presentation (serving) is quite different. It is served with sweet chutney, incorporated with onions, and water made of mint along with green chilies. The interesting addition to the serving is SEV, which is an all time treat for a true Indori. It is a tasty blend of Sweet and Spicy taste.
9) Tikki
Source: kochiskitchencorner
The moment you hear word tikki, what comes in your mind is aloo tikki, but Hoshangabad of Madhya Pradesh is the place where people love to have puris stuffed with potatos and dunked in spicy tangy water, and then call it tikki. The taste and the ingredients are as same as of Pani Puri, it’s just another name of our little pop up.
10) Patashi
Source: foodviva
Patashi is another name of Pani Puri, in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh this popular snack is known as Patashi and Pani ke Batashe as well. The fillings are same potatoes and chickpeas, and water is made of dry mango and spices. In some part of India a sweet dish made of sugar is also named as patashi.
11) Water Balls
Source: yourhungerstop
Have you ever thought what is the English name of Pani Puri?, People who wanted to name it in English, hadn’t given much thought on it. They simply translated the name and it became “Water Balls”.
Now in most part of our country the different flavour of pani puri are also available where people according to the region add flavours like hing, lashun, jeera, pudina etc.
There is a famous saying by Shakespeare “What’s in the name”, it goes here so perfectly, right! Gol Gappe, or Pani Puri we all love to have it and always ready to stand in queue for our turn. Right indori people…!
