Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Poornam Boorelu / Sweet coconut stuffed lentil dumplings - Festival Dish


One of my favorite festival dish! I like the sweet inner filling paired with coconut and lentils with the soft crunchy outer layer.
This year I didn't make many dishes as I would make every year, just made a few and I didn't want to miss out on 'Poornam Boorelu'.
There are a few modifications made by my Mom, which I follow. Usually, the outer layer is made of urad daal and rice soaked together and ground, but for a crunchy outer layer instead of whole rice, I used rice flour.
Rest of the recipe if almost similar the actual recipe..:)
Its a little time consuming dish and I won't call it easy, but it's not difficult to make it and once you have made it for the first time, I am sure it will be easy the second time around.
There are some problems you may encounter such as, the outer layer becoming hard or not staying on the sweet ball, so stick close to the recipe as much as possible and you should be fine.

Ingredients:

1 cup Urad daal, Minapa pappu, soaked overnight and ground to a thick batter
1 cup rice flour, use little more if necessary
some water
pinch of salt

3/4 cup pesar pappu, or moong daal
1/4 cup channa daal or chanaga pappu
1 cup grated coconut
1 cup to more of jaggery or belam (this depends on how sweet the jaggery is)
1/4 tsp ground cardamom or elaichi

Oil fro deep frying

Method:

Soak pesar pappu and chanaga pappu together for about an hour.
You can either cook them in a pressure cooker for one whistle or cook it directly on the stove top. Mash it a bit when cooked.
In a pan, melt jaggery with some water.
Add the cooked pappu to the jaggery and let it come together, become thick. Stir in the cardamom powder. If you think its not sweet enough, add some more jaggery. Finally stir in the grated coconut and let it become thick.
Let this cool down so that you can handle it by hand.

To the ground Urad daal, add the rice flour and mix it to a thick batter consistency using some water if required. Add a pinch of salt to the batter.

When the sweet mixture is cold enough to handle by hand, make small golf size balls and keep aside.
Bring the oil to hot, as hot as when you drop in a little batter, it should immediately come up. Since the inner stuffing is already cooker, its only the outer layer which should get cooked and browned, and this won't take much time.
Take each ball and dip it into the batter and slowly drop into the oil. Cook till outer layer is browned. Remove onto a paper napkin. Serve hot or warm. Enjoy!!!



Tip: Always be careful when handling hot oil. Keep distance when dropping into oil, if you are a beginner.
Store in a air tight container, in the fridge for 3-4 days. Warm in the Microwave when required.

Sending this to Preeti @ Khaugiri for 'ONLY' Festive Food, started by Pari @ Foodelicious.

3 comments:

  1. I remember this....especially back home @ festival time...everyone distributed sweets and snacks....and year round we had some festival to go around be it Pongal/Diwali/Ramzan/Christmas...this just makes me nostalgic Smitha

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  2. its time of festivals Brinda!!! I know what u mean!!

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  3. This recipe looks good! Yum, I remember eating these in Andhra. Sounds delicious! Will be trying this soon.

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