Puffed Rice - Wood-fired Mud Stove - Food Prepared In Clay Pots In The Ancient Way

Puffed rice, also known as popped rice or pop rice, is a type of puffed grain made from rice, commonly found in the traditional cuisines of Southeast Asia, East Asia, and South Asia. It is a popular ingredient in breakfast cereals and various snack foods. It is mostly used to make one of the popular South Asian snacks, Jhalmuri. Puffed rice, called 'Muri' in Bengal, is a popular snack in West Bengal and Bangladesh. This method of making puffed rice has been used since ancient times and involves a technique called hot salt frying. In this process, parboiled rice (rice that has been steamed and then dried) is puffed by adding it to preheated salt water. The traditional process for making puffed rice, or muri, involves conditioning the parboiled rice by gently heating it to reduce moisture, then roasting it on a strong fire of a traditional wood-fired mud stove with preheated sand in a clay pot or earthen pot. The moisture inside the grain is turning to steam under pressure, causing it to expand and pop into puffed rice, which is then quickly sieved out in a clay filter. Here, an elderly woman is making puffed rice, an ancient cooking process that is almost extinct due to modern machinery, in Tehatta, West Bengal, India, on October 28, 2025