Panipuri (also known by other regional names, including phuchka and golgappa) is a snack consisting of a deep-fried spherical puri shell, hollowed out for a filling and dipped in flavoured waters. It is commonly filled with a combination of potatoes, chickpeas, spices, and chutney. The flavoured waters are typically a spicy coriander leaf or mint chutney called teekha pani and a sweet tamarind chutney called meetha pani. About 1 inch (25mm) in diameter, it is a finger food eaten in one bite. Classified as a chaat, panipuri is a common snack and street food in the Indian subcontinent. Several variations exist, using different ingredients in the filling, waters, and dough.
The word Hindi pani means 'water', referring to the watery chutney used in the dish, and puri refers to rounds of deep-fried dough.[1][2] The term pani puri is used in most parts of India,[2] including Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu, as well as in Nepal.[3] It is also the most common term in other places in the world that are home to the Indian diaspora.[2]
Panipuri is made from small puris and watery chutney.
Puri made of wheat flour (left) and semolina (right), to be used in panipuri
The puri used in panipuri is made using a thin circle of dough, about 3 to 6 centimetres (1.2 to 2.4in) in diameter,[8] which inflates when frying to form a hollow spherical shell that keeps its shape.[1] It is crispier than regular puri, which is achieved by using oil instead of water in the dough, limiting gluten formation.[9] The puri is punctured using a finger, then filled with a filling,[1] often with potatoes or chickpeas, along with chutneys.[5] The filled puri is then quickly dipped in watered-down chutneys, known as pani, which are often chilled.[1] Panipuri is a finger food that is eaten without utensils.[2] It is eaten in one bite;[1] using multiple bites is seen as improper.[2] Panipuri combines sweet and sour flavours,[5][10] and it balances spiciness with the astringency and cooling of tamarind.[11] There is also a contrast between the crispy exterior and the soft filling.[9]
Panipuri is eaten by hand in one bite.
Regional variations differ based on ingredients in filling or the pani, as well as the type of flour used in the puri.[1][2] The puri is most commonly made of semolina flour, though it may also be made of wheat flours, including maida and atta.[12][1] The filling may contain mashed potato, chopped onion, peas, bean sprouts,[1]chilli powder, and chaat masala,[7] and mint or tamarind chutney may be added.[5] The pani is typically a spicy green sauce known as teekha pani (lit.'spicy water'), containing herbs like mint or coriander, along with red sauce known meetha pani (lit.'sweet water'), made of tamarind, similar to sooth chutney.[1][2] Lemon water is also used in some places.[5] The waters can include a garnishing of boondi, made of fried chickpea flour, or may include spices such as star anise.[2]
Panipuri is typically served by street food vendors, though versions also exist at restaurants. Street vendors of the dish, known as pani puri wallas, each use their own recipes. They serve panipuri by each customer's order,[1] such as using different levels of spiciness.[2] Panipuri may be assembled by the vendor or the customer; television presenter Padma Lakshmi wrote in 2017, "Nowadays, you’re often presented with the components and required to assemble each bite yourself ... Pani puri is never as good as when a master makes it."[10] People consume panipuri quickly—to prevent it from becoming soggy—and then leave, unlike with other street foods.[13] When served at restaurants, the dish may be served with the filling on the side, for the customer to add, or already filled in the puri, though the pani is still added after serving.[5]
Panipuri is a particularly popular snack in the summer.[10] As a light snack, it is popular in the evening.[14] It is classified as a chaat, a broad category of small snacks combining multiple ingredients, which are consumed in the early evening and typically served as street food.[1] The hollow puris used in panipuri are also used in other chaats such as sev puri, while a deflated version of the puri is used for papri chaat and bhelpuri.[2]
Variations
Panipuri in Mumbai is typically filled with ragda, made from mashed white peas, and served with tamarind and mint chutneys.[2]Bean sprouts are also commonly used in the filling in Mumbai.[5] In Gujarat, the traditional filling for panipuri is diced potatoes and boiled mung beans, while the pani contains dates and boondi. Pakodi, the version from parts of Gujarat, often excludes the tamarind chutney, instead using more mint and chilli, and onions are used in the filling. Some versions of pakodi add sev.[2]
In Lucknow, paanch swaad ke batashe consists of panipuri served with five flavoured waters.
A spiced, mashed filling of potatoes and black chickpeas is used in both the golgappa of Delhi and pani ke batashe from in and around Uttar Pradesh. Semolina puris are more common in Delhi, thicker and crispier than the puris used elsewhere. Delhi-style golgappe use a green chutney made with both mint and coriander and a red chutney made with less tamarind than usual and without star anise. pani ke batashe is distinguished by the spices in the pani, which is usually made of dried mango; other flavours include tamarind, lemon, cumin, dates, and hing. At restaurants in the Hazratganj neighbourhood of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, pani ke batashe is served with five flavours of pani and is thus called paanch swaad ke batashe (with paanch swaad meaning 'five flavours').[2]
The phuchka made in the eastern Indian subcontinent is distinct from panipuri. The puris are made of atta, the red chutney is sour rather than sweet, the green chutney is spicy, and the typical filling uses mashed potato and boiled Bengal gram.[2] In West Bengal, phuchka is often flavoured with gandhoraj lemon.[7] Phuchkas in Kolkata use slightly larger puris than most panipuris.[2]
Many vendors in South India—especially in rural areas—make versions of panipuri that are spicier and less sweet, to match the popular tastes in the region's cuisine, sometimes using rasam in place of pani.[14] In Bangalore, panipuri filling contains onion.[2] The panipuri in the town of Bangarapet, Karnataka, is renowned for its distinctive white-coloured pani. This recipe has been served by a vendor called Ramesh Chit Chat since the 1970s.[15]Gup chup, eaten in parts of southern and eastern India, uses a filling without potatoes.[2]
Upscale restaurants have developed versions with unusual ingredients, such as using guacamole as a filling or flavoured vodka as the pani.[1] Another upscale version is panipuri shots, in which panipuris are served on shot glasses of various flavours of pani,[16] which combines familiar Indian cuisine with international influences.[17] Food writer Vir Sanghvi states that the popularity of modern variations comes from the versatility of flavoured water as well as the ease of using puris as a base for other flavours, achieving a role similar to pastry doughs in European cuisine.[16]
Safety
As panipuri is a popular street food, its safety has been seen as a public health issue.[18] Panipuri is a perishable product whose ingredients may get contaminated with bacteria.[19] The risk of foodborne illness is caused by poor hygiene during preparation and serving as well as contamination of water or raw vegetables[20] as these are not cooked before consumption.[21] Hygenic risks occur as vendors often store the water used for panipuri in open containers and serve the dish by hand.[22] Several studies analysing panipuri served by street vendors have found bacteria such as E. coli, Staphylococcus, Salmonella, and Listeria.[23] A 2024 analysis by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India found that 22% of samples of panipuri in Karnataka were below standards due to substances classified as unsafe or carcinogenic.[24][25] The same year, this agency found 16% of samples in the city of Chennai to be unsafe for consumption.[26]
History
It is not known when or by whom panipuri was invented. One theory states that the dish have originated in the ancient kingdom of Magadha (present-day western Bihar). People in this region may have begun eating the original form of panipuri, known as phulki, by the 5th century BC.[2] According to culinary anthropologist Kurush Dalal, panipuri was adapted from chaat, which originated in the North Indian region of what is now Uttar Pradesh in the seventeenth century.[1]
Panipuri spread to the rest of India mainly due to migration within the country in the 20th century,[1] and it gained new names and variations of ingredients.[2]
Modern versions of panipuri include panipuri shots.
Modern variations of panipuri became popular sometime around the 1990s, according to Sanghvi. Sanghvi attributes this phenomenon to chef Sanjeev Kapoor, who developed variations of the dish at a restaurant in New Zealand in the 1990s. Restaurants also began serving vodka panipuri around this time; several chefs, including Hemant Oberoi of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, claimed to have invented it. According to Sanghvi, panipuri shots may have been invented may have been invented by chef Manish Mehrotra, who began serving the item in 2009. Further variations on panipuri were created by Gaggan Anand, whose dish Yoghurt Explosion used spherification to create a ball of yoghurt with a filling, and Himanshu Saini, whose restaurant Trèsind Studio in Dubai had unique versions of panipuri as its signature dish.[16]
During the COVID-19 lockdown in India, homemade panipuri became popular as street foods were not available. In the five weeks following the first lockdown order on 25 March 2020, Google searches for panipuri recipes doubled, and the food was a common topic on social media.[1] Around the early 2020s, Punjabi restaurants began serving versions of the dish, including butter chicken panipuri,[16] and food carts in Hyderabad began serving shawarma panipuri, which became a controversial viral sensation.[27] Around this time, chaats such as panipuri surged in popularity in South India, including in rural areas, overtaking the popularity of local snacks such as paniyaram, which required more cost and labour to produce. Panipuri became a common street food around Madurai and Coimbatore.[14] The dish was still associated with North India;[16] in 2022, Tamil Nadu politician K. Ponmudy disparagingly described Hindi speakers as "selling pani puri".[16][28] Panipuri, like other Indian dishes, became popular in China in the 2020s, inspiring the hashtag #IndianCrispyBall and being depicted in the video game Genshin Impact.[29]
Consumption
Panipuri is the most popular street food in the Indian subcontinent.[19] It is a highly popular fast food in India and in Nepal.[30] The typical price in India is 30 rupees (US$0.41) for six panipuris.[2] Panipuri is sometimes served as wedding food.[31] Stores sell pre-packaged puri shells for panipuri, as well as ready-to fry puri shells, which have been available since around the 2010s.[1]
Panipuri is popular in both urban and rural areas[1] and among all ages and social classes.[19][1] It is popular across genders, though it is particularly seen as a women's snack. Film critic Sohini Chattopadhyay noted that female film characters are shown eating panipuri more than other foods. Urban geographer Hugo Ribadeau Dumas found that, in the city of Purnea, Bihar, in 2022, most women preferred panipuri over other street foods, attributing this to the social acceptibility as a snack for women (as depicted in film and advertising), as well as gender norms against public leisure activities for women, as other street foods take more time to eat.[13]
Panipuri is a traditional street food of Delhi, where vendors are typically migrants from Uttar Pradesh or Bihar.[32] Compared to other street foods in the city, selling panipuri requires the lowest investment. Most vendors migrate to the city with the intent to enter this job, often learning to make the dish before migrating; this commonly involves chain migration as a panipuri vendor invites others within their social network to set up a set up a shop in the same neighbourhood.[33] Some of the city's panipuri vendors expand to sell other chaats, such as papri chaat or aloo tikki.[34] In Mumbai, panipuri is popular on beaches.[35] The city of Hyderabad has many popular panipuri stalls; the Hussain Sagar neighbourhood has over one hundred vendors of the snack.[31] Panipuri and other chaats are also popular in the South Indian city of Mysore, alongside dishes more local to the region, having historically been sold by migrants from Uttar Pradesh or Bihar.[36]
Indian migrants have introduced panipuri to other parts of the world.[2] Restaurants in Dubai serve several regional styles,[2] while restaurants in Washington, D.C. mostly serve it filled with chickpeas and potatoes.[5] Modern versions of panipuri are served by chefs globally.[37]
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Kundu, Aditi; Dutta, Sayak (2020). "Migration and Entry to Urban Street Food Market: A Study of Selected Street Food Vendors in Delhi". In Bandyopadhyay, Sumana; Pathak, Chitta Ranjan; Dentinho, Tomaz Ponce (eds.). Urbanization and Regional Sustainability in South Asia. Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp.39–54. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-23796-7_4. ISBN978-3-030-23795-0.
Loss, Christopher R.; Bouzari, Ali (15 March 2016). "On food and chemesthesis – food science and culinary perspectives". In McDonald, Shane T.; Bolliet, David A.; Hayes, John E. (eds.). Chemesthesis (1ed.). Wiley. pp.250–267. doi:10.1002/9781118951620.ch13. ISBN978-1-118-95173-6.
Misra, P. K. (December 2019). "Ethnographic Approach in Understanding Street Vendors in Modern India: A Plea for Research and Documentation". Journal of the Anthropological Survey of India. 68 (2): 175–190. doi:10.1177/2277436X19877311. ISSN2277-436X.
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