sweetest of sweets : Puran poli / Obbattu

All these days i would just imagine myself doing Puran Poli and indulging in all of them on my own without offering it to anyone! In fact, used to keep dreaming about it all through my college days when most of my classmates used to bring these after Ugadi festival. And, lo, You got it right. I snatch it from every possible person and eat/hog them!

A very sweet memory of this dish is that my friend Vara, made all the effort and spent a day in making these delicacies for me - specially and brought them to college. And i took them to a cricket ground, so that i can avoid those "Evil" eyes on my stomach's capabilities and the passion that I had for these yummy sweeeeeet chapathis. Those days are still fresh in my mind. What friendship....lovely...And as days/years passed, we got married and moved on to different places in the world.

Here is the recipe.
1. Plain flour - 2 cups
2. Turmeric - 1 pinch (Poli's if desired in Yellow color)
3. Salt - 1 pinch
4. Rice flour - 1 tsp
5. Semolina (Rava) - 1 tsp
6. Oil - 3 tsp
7. Split chickpeas (Channa dal) - 1 1/2 cup
8. Jaggery - 2 big blocks
9. cardamom - 10
10. Sugar - 5 tsp
11. Oil for shallow frying and dipping fingers


Boil the channa dal till it is firm but completely boiled and soft.It should be mashed when u apply little pressure keeping a morsel between thumb and forefinger.
Now, when hot, dry the dal on a paper towel to remove any possible moisture from it. Grind it to a fine powder. Put this powder in tava and add jaggery to it. Keep stirring, so that the mixture becomes a paste, since jaggery melts when heated.

Powder cardamom and sugar. Need not worry about the skin of cardamom. it will get crushed, when ground with sugar.
Add this to the channa dal mixture. Mix it and allow it to cool.

Mix plain flour, rice flour and semolina with salt and 3 tsp oil. Make it into a soft dough.

Make a ball of the sweet channa dal mixture and another ball which is half the size , from the plain flour dough. Grease a butter paper or any plastic paper with oil and also grease your fingers. Place the plain flour ball and press it into a pan cake and place the sweet ball and pull the outer pan cake such that it covers the sweet ball. Now press this into a thin layered chapathi. Heat the pan and cook it on the pan with a tsp of oil. Cook it until slightly brown on either side.

Enjoy it for a cup of tea, as an evening snack.

Note: Make it in the size of a palm, so that you can just lift it off the plate and have it with ease. Its easy to make in smaller shape, as well.

tc,
N:astro