Luchi is a deep-fried puffy Bengali bread, in short, a Bengali poori. Luchi is prepared with a dough made of all-purpose flour/maida, salt, sugar & oil/ ghee and deep fried in vegetable oil. In the old Bengali cuisine, luchi was made of frying in ghee, however, we no longer carry that old tradition due to health. Though still, frying luchi in dalda or vanaspati (vegetable fat) in Bengali biye bari or restaurants or misti’r dokan (Bengali sweet shop) are favorite to Bengalis. I generally make it at home on Sunday or any holiday for breakfast, however, this Bengali puri is always a hit recipe whether make it on any Bengali occasion from Durga puja to Picnic.
In Bengali cuisine, Luchi pairs with Aloo r dom, Alur torkari, Aloor chorchori, Begun vaja, Cholar Dal (Bengali chana dal recipe), Sooji (Suji’r halwa), Phukopir Tarkari – kosha Mangsho (Bengali mutton or chicken curry recipe) – Mangshor jhol – Ghugni (yellow peas curry) considered the best traditional meal from breakfast to lunch. Also have many more yummiest curry recipes in our cuisine goes well with this Bengali poori. However, I love to eat luchi with aloor tarkari (aloo ki sabzi in Bengali) among all of those Bengali side dishes, due to the simplicity and quickly made nature of this potato curry.
What is Luchi?
Luchi is an authentic Bengali maida poori with a crispy flaky top and a soft fluffy core. Luchi and North Indian poori have quite similarities in looks but they are not the same. The main difference is, poori has a brownish-yellow texture while luchi has a white tone. Poori is a preparation of atta or wheat flour, whereas luchi is a preparation of maida. Poori dough is a little harder than luchi dough as a result poori is less soft than luchi as well.
Tearing with the light pressure of two fingers & just melting in the mouth is a sign of a perfect luchi recipe. For making a perfect luchi, a few techniques need to follow from making a soft dough of this bengali maida poori to a special technique of rolling and deep frying luchi in oil (check a few simple tips & tricks below) to make it puffy.
How To Make Perfect Bengali Luchi recipe?
Tips 1: A Perfect Moyan – Bengali luchi must have a perfect Moyan/Moyen. In Bengali, the word Moyan/moyen means nicely rubbing maida with ghee or oil before adding water for making luchi and porota bread dough. A good moyan never allows luchi to soak much oil but rather makes this bengali bread soft & fluffy. But luchi gets hard if less moyan is used, whereas if moyan is more, makes this bread super flaky. That super flaky luchi is called khasta luchi in Bengali cuisine. So moyan is very important for making it perfect.
Tips 2: Prepare A Soft Dough – Luchi dough must be soft but not too soft dough that you can not roll it properly. To contain that softness a little bit of sugar is mixed with flour before kneading. Maida & water proportion must be perfect, that perfection comes with experience.
So if you are a novice must not add the water (whole water) at a time, rather gradually mix it while kneading the dough. Knead it until the dough is soft & smooth. As How long you will knead the dough, luchi will be soft & fluffy accordingly due to making more air pockets in the dough.
Tips 3: Keep The Dough At Rest – Need to keep the dough at rest minimum of 30 mins, covering it by a plate or moist cloth. Mainly dough should not come in contact with air while resting. Oil greasing over the dough is one more technique to prevent it from being in contact with air.
Tips 4: Perfect Rolling Technique – Due to the perfect rolling technique, every luchi must be puffy after putting in oil. Simply roll the luchi dough up & down 3- 4 times then roll it again 2-3 times from the other side. Do not put too much pressure on rolling the dough. Otherwise, the air pockets get broken and luchi won’t be perfectly puffed up. If your luchi is not in a round shape, don’t worry it will be puffed for sure, & little more practice help you to make it round.
Tips 5: How To Fry Luchi To Make It Puffy – Put the luchi in the oil, and once the oil starts releasing smoke. If the oil is not perfectly hot can not make it puffy instead get hard like papad. After putting in the oil, slightly press the top of this flat-rolled luchi with a perforated ladle and you can see immediately that the bread is completely puffed up. Then turn it down when golden from the back side and fry until golden from both sides. Fulko luchi is ready, the name fulko/phulko comes from bengali word fola (English meaning puffed up). How fulko or fola the luchis are, indicates making the perfect bengali luchi recipe.
What is sada alur torkari recipe?
Sada alu tarkari is a no-turmeric-added white and creamy simple potato curry very popular in West Bengal (especially in Kolkata) goes best with luchi. Made of cube-cut potatoes tossed in oil (mustard oil or any other vegetable oil) with the tempering of bengali five spice (paanch phoron) and a few whole red chillies. Flavoured with little hing (asafoetida), spiced up with green red chillies, and seasoned with slight sugar and salt. Due to not using turmeric powder make this potato curry white.
Check how to make luchi and sada alur tarkari recipe at ease for authentic Bengali breakfast. Hope my simple step-by-step recipe detail with pictures will help you to do it perfectly. So Make this recipe for this year’s Durga puja time breakfast.
Check a few Yummy Tarkari recipes for Luchi
Aloor Dum (With Onion & Garlic)
Niramish Aloor Dum
Aloo Potoler dalna
Niramish Phulkopir roast
Restaurant style Mutton Kosha
Chicken Kosha
Luchi recipe with Bengali sada alur torkari – for breakfast | How to make Perfect Bengali Luchi recipe
Course: BreakfastCuisine: Bengali, IndianDifficulty: Moderate22
servings25
minutes10
minutes300
kcal35
minutesLuchi is a deep-fried puffy Bengali bread, in short a Bengali poori. Luchi is made of a dough of all-purpose flour, ghee/ oil/dalda, salt, sugar, water, and deep-fried in vegetable oil. Bengali alur sabji like aloo’r dom, alur torkari, aloor chorchori even Begun bhaja or Cholar Dal or Bengali chana dal is also the popular & best side dish that goes well with luchi.
Ingredients
- For Making Luchi
2 cups Maida / All-purpose flour
3/4 tsp Sugar
3/4 tsp Salt
3 tbsp Vegetable Oil / Ghee / Dalda
Water (as required for kneading)
1.5 cup (≈ 375 ml) Vegetable Oil (for frying)
- For Making Sada Alur Torkari
4 Medium to Big Aloo
3 tbsp Mustard Oil
1/2 tsp Paanch Phoron (Bengali five spice)
1/4 tsp Hing (Asafoetida)
1+1/2 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Salt
2 cups water (for cooking)
How to make luchi recipe with Bengali sada alur torkari
- For making Luchi
- First, make the dough by taking 2 cups of maida or all-purpose flour. Add 3/4 tsp salt, and 3/4 tsp sugar in maida, and mix it well.
- Add moyan of 3 tbsp vegetable oil (or ghee or dalda), and nicely mix it with maida (by fingertips) until making a crumbly mixture.
- Gradually mix water and start kneading the dough until gets soft. I used almost 3/4 cups (≈ 182 ml) of water.
- Then knead the dough continuously for 10 mins.
- Grease the dough with 2 tsp oil & cover it for at least 30 mins with a plate or moist kitchen cloth.
- After 30 mins of resting, take out the dough, make small lemon size balls, and again cover the lemon size dough until rolling.
- Then take a rolling board, and grease it with little oil. Grease the rolling pin too.
- Take a small dough, first, slightly press by hand, then gently roll it lengthwise 4 times.
- Then slightly turn the rolling board, and again roll the dough from another side 3 times.
- When rolling is done, keep it on an oil-greased plate (greased with 1/2 tsp oil).
- Do not put too much pressure on rolling the dough. Otherwise, the air pockets get broken and luchis won’t be perfectly puffed up.
- Then heat a pan (heavy deep bottom pan) on medium to high flame. Add a generous amount of vegetable oil (I used 1.5 cups of oil = 375 ml).
- Let the oil release smoke, then put the luchi into the oil.
- Then slightly press the luchis from the top with a perforated ladle until completely puff up.
- Then turn it down, once get a golden texture from the back side.
- Fry it until getting golden from both sides. Then remove the luchi from the pan with perforated oil.
- Keep the luchis in a colander or tissue paper lined plate to remove extra oil.
- Luchi is ready to eat with any side bengali dish, such as aloo tarkari or alu dum or bengun bhaja or cholar dal, or mangsho.
- For Making aloo tarkari
- First, wash, peel out & cut the aloo into small cubes (like Ghugni’r style alu).
- Wash the aloo 4-5 times or until clear off the water. Soak it in water to preventing from oxidization (get a black patch for direct contact with air).
- Heat a pan on medium flame, once the pan releases smoke add oil. I used 3 tbsp mustard oil, can use vegetable oil too.
- Once the oil releases smoke, add 1/2 tsp of paanch phoron and 2 whole red chillies.
- When the paanch phoron crackles, discard the water from the soaked aloo & put it in the pan. Stir it well.
- Then add 1/4 tsp of hing (asafoetida) and mix it well. Fry the aloo until the water dried up (released by aloo).
- Then add 3 green chillies (making a slit), 1 tsp salt & 1+1/2 tsp sugar (as per taste). Give a good stir.
- Just after a minute adds 2 cups of water (≈ 500 ml) to the pan, and mix it well.
- Raise the gas flame to high and let the gravy starts boiling.
- Then cover the pan, and keep the heat on medium.
- Once aloo gets soft, raise the gas flame on high to get the perfect consistency of the gravy.
- To make a creamy gravy, slightly mash a few potato cubes with a masher or the back of the ladle and nicely mix them with the gravy.
- To make this aloo tarkari spicy, mash the green chillies too.
- Cook the gravy until getting a slightly thick & slight slurry consistency.
- Sada alur torkari is ready, serve it hot with luchi at bengali breakfast.
Notes
- If you could not digest maida, must replace maida with atta by keeping other ingredients the same. Atta’r luchi is a favorite to many Bengalis.
- How long you will knead the dough luchi will be soft, spongy & puffy due to creating more air pockets into the dough.
- Oil greasing over the dough is one more technique to prevent the dough from being in contact with air.
- After rolling the dough, must cover it with a moist cloth, otherwise, luchi gets hard after frying.
- Store the extra luchi dough in a food graded airtight container and keep it in refrigerator for 2-3 days.
How To Make Luchi recipe (step by step with pictures)
For making luchi dough
- Mix 2 cups of maida or all-purpose flour with 3/4 tsp salt, and 3/4 tsp sugar. Mix it well.
- Add 3 tbsp oil or ghee or dalda as moyen. Nicely mix with maida (by fingertips) until making a crumbly mixture. As shown in below pic.
- Gradually mix water and start kneading the dough until gets soft. Continuously knead the dough for 10 mins.
- Grease the dough with 2 tsp oil & cover it for at least 30 mins with a plate or moist kitchen cloth.
- After resting, take out the dough, make small lemon size balls, and gently roll them keeping between your palms to make them smooth. As shown in the picture below.
Rolling Luchis
- Grease the rolling board and rolling pin grease with little oil.
- Take a small dough, first, slightly press by hand, then gently roll it from the center, lengthwise 4 times. Then slightly turn the rolling board, and again roll the dough from another side 3 times.
- After rolling a luchi, Keep it on an oil-greased plate. In the same way, keeps all the luchis on the same greased plate.
Frying Luchi in Oil
- Heat a pan (heavy deep bottom pan) on medium to high flame. Add a generous amount of vegetable oil (I used 1.5 cups of oil = 375 ml).
- Let the oil release smoke, then put the loochi into the oil.
- Then slightly press the luchis from the top with a perforated ladle until completely puff up. Then turn it down.
- Fry it until getting golden from both sides. Then remove the luchi from the pan with perforated oil. Keep the luchis in a colander or tissue paper lined plate to remove extra oil.
- Luchi is ready, serve it with Aloo Tarkari or Aloo’r Dom or Begun bhaja or Cholar Dal or kosha Mangsho, or Ghugni.
