What is Dhal Puri?

Dhal Puri is an East Indian flatbread stuffed with seasoned yellow spit peas. Trinidad and Guyana have a big population of the East Indian culture because their ancestors came over as indentured servants in the 1800’s; so we eat a lot of East Indian dishes. We had our first taste of roti which is the base of dhal puri in Trinidad not too long after we arrived on our mission. We soon realized that roti is a main staple of the diet in these two countries. My favorite form of roti is dhal puri. So when our Relief Society announced our enrichment meeting would be to learn how to make dhal puri I was very interested. Our cooking lesson was on Saturday May 28 at 4:00 PM. Sister Devi was the teacher. She has a degree from a cooking school, so she is an expert. We had a lot of fun. The sisters thought it was pretty funny that I didn’t know anything about their foods and how to cook them. I think they really liked that I was genuinely interested in their culture. Sister Devi taught how to take yellow split peas, cook them and add garlic and hot pepper and spices and roll into balls the size of a big walnut. Then she let us do hands-on cooking as she taught us to make roti dough. We flattened a small section of dough, added the ball of dhal blend and then wrapped the dough around the dhal. The next step was to roll the whole thing together into a flat bread that reminds me of a tortilla. Then she had us put the bread on a very hot flat cast iron skillet – cook on one side then turn only once. I was able to try every step and learned a lot. Maybe I will get brave when I go home and make it for my family.

The sisters also made another popular East Indian dish – everyone’s favorite – chicken and potato curry. Then of course we were able to taste the food we had made. Delicious!

I love my Guyanese Sisters – Urmella, Marlene, Alicia, Cassandra, Melissa, Sister Moses, Sister Valarie, Sister Devi, Sister Sauers, Sister Reddi, Sister Hussian and Sister LaRose.


While we were enjoying our R.S. cooking lesson, Larry was there but he was cleaning the building in preparation for Sunday Meetings. The sisters shared their food with Elder Harris. He was glad to oblige them.

Afterward, Larry and I went to visit one of our favorite families, the Sunthgolams. Mother is Valarie, father Robert and children, Dominiqe, Cassandra and R.J. Robert was home for one day from his job in the bush. We wanted to meet him.
He gets to come home about every three weeks.