Chana Puri: A Mauritian Ball with a Yellow Split Pea Filling
The signs on Mauritian snack stalls tend to follow a fixed hierarchy: gâteaux piment at the top, samosas below them, and chana puri somewhere further down. At the food truck in Curepipe where I stocked up, it sat third from the top. If I were writing those signs, I'd flip the order.
Chana puri is a small fried ball of leavened dough filled with a spiced mixture of yellow split peas - a street-food bite of Mauritian cuisine, sold a few pieces at a time in a paper bag.
Chana Puri in India and Chana Puri in Mauritius
The name is put together from the Hindi chana, chickpea, and puri, fried bread - except that somewhere on the way across the ocean the name came loose from the food. In India, "chana puri" means a plate with two things on it: a puffed poori and a chickpea curry beside it. In Mauritius you get a single object - a ball that has both parts inside it: leavened dough on the outside, spiced split peas within. The same two words, a different grammar of eating. The Mauritian version comes closest to the North Indian chole bhature - bhatura is leavened fried dough too, but it also arrives next to the curry, not wrapped around it. And to top it off, the name promises chickpeas, while the filling is most often yellow split peas, sometimes with potato and onion - not even Mauritian recipes agree on what exactly belongs inside, so the filling is a lottery that depends on the stall.
On the island, chana puri is one of those fried tea-time snacks in which yellow split peas take the lead role several times over: dholl puri spreads them into a flatbread, gâteaux piment mashes them into a ball with no wrapper at all, and the sweet tekwa seals them into a pocket of dough. Chana puri is the only one in that lineup that hides its filling in leavened dough - and that is exactly what sets it apart from the samosa, which otherwise often carries the very same filling. Nobody knows who brought it to the island: the whole family is generally credited to the Indian indentured laborers of the 19th century, but for chana puri specifically nobody has ever cited a year, a place or an Indian ancestor - the shape recalls the South Indian bonda, but a resemblance is not a pedigree.
Leavened Dough, Split Peas Inside, Chili on Top
The dough is made with yeast and has to rise for a good two hours before frying; in hot oil the balls puff up light and airy.
You'll find it on food trucks and stalls all over the island, usually right next to dholl puri and samosas. You eat them hot, with your fingers - the sellers wrap the balls in paper, and islanders mostly reach for them as an afternoon snack with tea. Tomato or cilantro chutney goes with them; anyone who can take more heat gets the still-warm balls smeared with chili paste, which is exactly how they do it at the stalls. There is a meat version too, but the classic is meat-free - another Mauritian dish a vegetarian doesn't have to think twice about.
A Paper Bag from Curepipe
I bought them from the Caravanne Bleu Blanc Rouge food truck in Curepipe - the one with the sign where "Chanapuri" ran as a single word on the third line down. The dough was airy, the mixture inside beautifully seasoned, and I kept slathering the still-warm balls with chili paste, which suits them perfectly. One ball cost 5 MUR (0.10 EUR). Of everything I ate in Mauritius, chana puri is my number one - an absolute knockout. And it is also the one Mauritian dish I genuinely miss back home in Czechia.
