NCERT Solutions Curiosity Chapter 1 Keeping notes, and the new questions an experiment raises — In-text Questions

Book page 7 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

Did the oil splatter, smell, or smoke?

Answer

Write down all three — each one is telling you something about the experiment you would otherwise miss. They are not stray details; they are data.

Observation	What it is telling you	What to do about it
The oil splattered	Free water reached the hot oil — from a damp disc, wet hands or a wet ladle. At 180 °C that water turns to steam instantly and throws the oil out	Dry the ladle; roll the disc with a light dusting of dry flour
There was a smell	The oil is being broken down by heat, or bits of flour left in it from earlier puris are burning	Strain out the burnt bits; do not reheat the same oil again and again
The oil smoked	The oil has crossed its smoke point — it is too hot. Beyond this the puri browns outside before the inside can make steam, so it may not puff	Lower the flame at once and let the oil cool a little

Why it happens: the temperature of oil is hard to measure in a kitchen, but splattering, smell and smoke are free thermometers — the oil is telling you how hot it is. A scientist records such qualitative observations exactly because they capture conditions no instrument in the room is measuring.

Safety first: hot oil at 180 °C causes serious burns, and smoking oil can catch fire. Do this only with an elder present — the Hindi edition of the book says so in as many words. Never put water on burning oil; cover the pan and turn off the flame.

Q2.

Do puris puff better when made fresh or from stored dough?

Answer

Freshly kneaded dough that has been allowed to rest for about 15–20 minutes usually puffs best — but this is a question you are meant to test, not to accept, so the experiment matters more than the answer.

Why fresh dough has the advantage:

It still holds all the water it was kneaded with, and that water is what becomes the steam that inflates the puri. Stored dough dries at the surface and forms a skin, so there is less water to turn to steam.
The short rest matters too. Straight after kneading, the gluten is tight and the disc shrinks back when you roll it. After 15–20 minutes it relaxes, so you can roll an even disc — and an even disc seals evenly.
Dough kept for hours, especially in warm weather, starts to ferment and turn sour. The gluten network weakens, gas leaks out instead of being held, and the puri never seals properly.
Dough taken straight from the fridge is cold, and it cools the oil around it when it goes in. Cooler oil means a slower crust and a poorer puff.

How to actually test it — a fair test:

Knead one batch of dough. Use half of it now; keep the other half covered for 8 hours.
Keep everything else identical: same flour, same thickness, same diameter, same oil, same oil temperature, same way of sliding it in. Only the age of the dough differs.
Fry at least 5 puris from each batch — one puri proves nothing, since a single one may fail by chance.
Record two things each time: did it puff (yes/no), and how many seconds it took.
Compare: out of 5, how many puffed in each batch, and what was the average time?

Why it happens: repeating the trial five times is what turns an anecdote into a result. Kitchens are full of small uncontrolled differences — a slightly hotter patch of oil, a slightly thicker disc — and repeating lets those average out so the effect you are actually looking for can show through.

Q3.

What happens if I prick a hole in the puri before frying?

Answer

It will not puff. It will fry flat and go crisp instead — you will have made something closer to a papdi or a mathri than a puri.

Why it happens: the whole balloon depends on the crust being sealed. Steam forms inside either way, but a pricked hole is an open escape route. The steam simply streams out through it, so the pressure never builds, and without pressure nothing pushes the two layers apart. The disc stays as one flat sheet, keeps losing water to the oil, and ends up dry and crisp — and because it stays flat it also spends longer touching the oil, so it soaks up more of it.

This is a prediction, so test it properly: roll two discs from the same dough, of the same thickness and diameter. Prick one with a fork; leave the other whole. Fry them in the same oil, one after the other, put in the same way. If the pricked one fails to puff and the whole one puffs, your explanation has passed its test.

Tip: the same idea explains a puri that fails for no obvious reason. A tiny tear or crack made while rolling acts as a hole you did not intend — the seal is broken, and no seal means no balloon.

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