Dholl puri

Mauritius in the hand: soft flatbreads stuffed with ground turmeric-spiced split peas, doubled over a bean curry and eaten walking

Origin: Port Louis & Mauritius

From the journey of Pea.

Dholl puri is the street food of Mauritius by a distance, sold from vans and stalls across the island and eaten at a rate that makes it a genuine national habit rather than a speciality. Two soft flatbreads, each stuffed with a layer of ground yellow split peas seasoned with turmeric and cumin, are laid together, filled with rougaille or a butter bean curry, dressed with pickle and chilli paste, folded, and handed over in paper. It came with indentured labour. After the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, Mauritius received the first and largest wave of Indian indentured workers, beginning in 1834, and roughly half a million people arrived over the following decades, most of them from Bihar and the eastern Gangetic plain. The Aapravasi Ghat in Port Louis, where they landed, is a UNESCO World Heritage site specifically because it was the pilot site for a system later exported across the empire. What arrived was the north Indian stuffed flatbread and what emerged is not quite it. Indian dal puri is generally fried; the Mauritian version is dry-cooked on a griddle and comes out soft and foldable rather than crisp. The filling is ground finer, the turmeric is more assertive, and the whole is assembled as a wrap in a way no Indian version is. The dish is a Mauritian creation using a technique that crossed the sea with its cooks. The split pea is doing real work. Ground dry and steamed rather than made into a paste, it stays granular inside the bread, which is why a correctly made dholl puri has a faint sandy texture that distinguishes it from any wheat-only flatbread.

Ingredients

Filling

  • 250 g yellow split peas, soaked 4 hours
  • 1.5 tsp ground turmeric
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp salt

Dough

  • 500 g plain flour
  • 0.5 tsp ground turmeric
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 tbsp oil, plus more for cooking
  • 300 ml warm water, approximately

Method

  1. Drain the soaked split peas, cover with fresh water, and boil for twenty to twenty-five minutes until just tender but still holding shape. They must not go mushy: overcooked peas cannot be ground dry and will make the filling paste.
  2. Drain thoroughly and spread out to dry and cool for fifteen minutes.
  3. Grind the peas to a fine, dry, sandy powder in a food processor or spice grinder, in batches. Mix in the turmeric, cumin, and salt. Push through a coarse sieve if any lumps remain.
  4. For the dough, mix the flour, turmeric, and salt, work in the oil, then add the warm water gradually to a soft, pliable dough. Knead for eight minutes until smooth. Rest, covered, for thirty minutes.
  5. Divide the dough into twelve balls. Flatten one in your palm, make a well, and spoon in two tablespoons of the pea powder.
  6. Gather the edges over the filling and pinch to seal completely, then flatten gently. Sealing properly is the step that goes wrong; any gap and the filling escapes when you roll.
  7. Roll out carefully on a lightly floured surface to a thin round about 18cm across, turning as you go and using light even pressure so the filling spreads rather than bursts.
  8. Cook on a hot dry griddle for about a minute a side, until pale gold spots appear. Brush very lightly with oil and give each side another thirty seconds. It should stay soft and foldable, never crisp.
  9. Stack under a cloth as you go. Serve two at a time, layered, filled with butter bean curry, rougaille, pickle, and chilli paste, then folded.

Notes

The peas must be dried and ground to a powder, not a paste, and this is the single thing that separates a real dholl puri from a stuffed chapati. Undercook them slightly rather than overcook. The bread is griddled soft rather than fried crisp, so resist adding much oil. They are at their best within an hour and go stiff if refrigerated; warm them briefly on a dry pan to bring them back.

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