Poornalu/Poornam Boorelu/Sweet Chanadal balls

Life sometimes keep you crazily busy...I have been busy taking care of other stuff which kept me away from posting my recipes. Finally I am BACK!! It makes me feel better to be able to resume my blog YAYYYYY!! 
Coming to my wonder today, people from south India need no introduction about this dish. This is most popular and traditional dish prepared during this time of the year in my place. This time of the year is called as 'Sravana Masam' and most people perform special rituals(known as Varalakshmi Vratham) during this time and Poornalu are prepared as the main offering to Goddess Lakshmi. Here is the recipe to make yummy Poornalu.......

Ingredients

For outer layer

1 cup Urad Dal
2 cups Rice
pinch of baking soda
couple of pinches of salt

Inner stuffing

1 cup Chana Dal
2 cups Water
1 1/2 cup Jaggery
2 tbsp dry coconut powder(optional)
Pinch of elaichi Powder

Method


Soak Urad Dal and Rice in water for 5 to 8 hours or overnight. Grind Dal and rice together into a fine batter just like Dosa batter. Make sure that the batter is not too thick nor too thin.  I usually prepare my batter the night before and let it ferment just like dosa batter. Add salt, baking powder and mix well. Set aside.
Soak Chana dal in water for an hour. Pressure cook the chana dal in 2 cups of water for 3 whistles. Drain the excess water if any. Let the cooked chana dal cool and grind it to a paste. Do not add water to grind chana dal. Set aside.
Heat a pan, add Jaggery and couple of tbsp of water. Once the jaggery is all melted, strain the syrup through a sieve to remove any impurities and add the syrup back to the pan. Add in the chana dal paste to the jaggery syrup and mix well to incorporate everything together. Let the mixture cook till all the water is evaporated and the mixture can be formed into balls. Keep stirring the mixture all the time. Now add in the coconut powder and elaichi powder, give it a good stir and turn off the heat. Let the mixture cool down a little bit and then make lemon sized balls out of the mixture. Set them aside.
Heat oil in a heavy bottom pan. Dip each ball in batter and gently drop the ball into the oil. Make sure all the sides are evenly coated with the batter. Fry till the balls are light golden brown on all sides.
Drain them on paper towels and let them cool.

Note

My technique while dropping the batter dipped balls into oil is I just use my two fingers(index and middle) to lift the ball from the batter and drop into the oil.
I use dry coconut powder to thicken the chana dal - jaggery syrup mixture.
I usually make extra batch of chana dal - jaggery mixture, store it in the refrigerator and use it later to make bobbatlu.

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