Chana dal or Toor Dal, Flour, Jaggery, Clarified butter. This four ingredeits brings the whole of Western India to make the most iconic dish: Puran Poli.
If we look at history, this dish reflects the the lifestyle & economic scenes of Maratha, Gujarati, Parsi community living in Western India. As a dish it easily crosses all the barriers and is made with slightly changes in each community. Like in Gujarati community its made in a thick round shape filled with Toor dal, while in Marathi its made thin with Chana dal. Parsi community makes Dar-ni-pori something very different, a thick poli almost cake like filled with dried fruits & nuts.

Being from Mumbai in Maharashtra one cannot miss the most essential dish during any festival. PuranPoli, an indigenous Maharashtrian food, loved and devoured in almost every household in the state. I recall my childhood and how eagerly I waited to be made and served hot with a big dollop of clarified butter.

While today we celebrate every other fancy & random sweet, we most not forget our humble Puranpoli. Its here to stay deep-rooted in our tradition for years to come. And this here is my respect to the iconic sweet dish.

History fact: The first reference of PuranPoli can be found in The Manasollas, also known as Abhilashitarth Chintamani, an early 12th-century Sanskrit text composed by the South Indian king Someshvara III of the Kalyani Chalukya dynasty.