Cooking web notes

Happy Onam to you!! This day brings back good old memories and my tongue tingles with the taste of good food.  It takes me to the fastest swing my late Grandfather made for us children.  It reminds me how we pestered him until the swing was made.  How, being the eldest amongst my cousins I decided who gets to swing the swing first.  Those were the days.

  Onam meant family reunion.  Cousins from all over the state and country made it to our little town where my grandparent lived.  I next door.  The time other than summer vacation I met my cousins.  We exchanged secrets, played hide and seek and hopping and skipping.   Onam morning we headed out at dawn to pick flowers and make "athappokkalam" the flower carpet  The front yard would be embellished so to speak.  I don't see those flowers anymore in our neighborhood.  Those days are past.  The days of "thumbapoovu"( white beautiful small flowers)"mukkutti"(yellow small ones) "onappovu"(lilac with big petals).  However, the memories are etched in me to never go away.

  It's a day of abundance, color, food and and merry making in my small town.  I hope to spread that cheer to you.



It has been ages since we had celebrated Onam with all the family members and I miss that a lot.But still I make sure that my small family gets a miniature version of it, every year.This time I decided to make this special dessert which goes perfectly well with paalpayasam, Boli, which is usually served in marriage feasts/sadya.

Boli/Holige/Obbattu/Bobatlu/Puran poli is all the same, Boli being the name of this dessert in Tamilnadu and Kerala.

Ingredients:

Channa dal/kadalapparippu- 1 cup
Sugar- 1 cup
Ghee/clarified butter- 2-3 Tbsp
Nutmeg powder- 1/8 tsp
Cardamom powder- 1/2 tsp
All purpose flour/Maida- 1 cup
Yellow food color- a few drops
Salt
Gingely Oil- 2 Tbsp
Rice flour- enough to roll the dough



Method:

1.Pressure cook the channa daal with a pinch of salt.
Knead the dough with salt and food color to a smooth dough. (the dough should be looser than the poori dough.)Bring together the dough to form a big disc, and pour the gingely oil on the top of it so that the dough is completely covered in the oil.Keep it aside for at lest half an hour.
2.Drain any excess water from the cooked daal.
3.Heat a tablespoon of ghee in a nonstick pan. Saute the cooked daal with sugar until all the water gets absorbed.
4.Now add the nutmeg and cardamom powders into this and mix well.Switch off the heat and let it cool.
5.Grind this mixture in a mixer grinder without adding any water to a smooth paste.
6.Make lime sized balls out of it.
7.Take a small portion of the dough, say gooseberry sized, and press it on the palm to get a small poori and keep the daal ball in it and cover it up.Just like you would do to make parathas.
8.Now roll it carefully on a floured surface. It's best to use rice flour for flouring.
9.Cook this on low heat on a tawa until both sides are cooked.
10. Do not overcook or let the sides brown.While turning the sides brush a little ghee on both sides.
11.Seve with paalpayasam or serve as it is.



Notes:

1.This recipe gives you around 15 boli.
2.You could also add 1 tablespoon of gingely oil in the ghee and knead it all together and cover up the dough before you roll them out. But I have found that this method is more easier.
3.Check here for the paalpayasam recipe, which I posted a couple of weeks back.

Here is the picture of an "athappokkalam" which was taken during the Onam celebrations in Hyderabad a few years back, to wish you all a Happy and Proseperous Onam !!!



Contributor: Namitha