There is a tradition in our community that we make and share poli once the baby falls flat on his tummy "Borla padithe bobbatlu". But people these days are forgetting the old customs. I wanted to do all the things that are traditionally done on different occasions for the new baby. Like "navvulaku nuvvu undalu" (sesame seed laddus for the smiles), "borla padithe bobbatlu", "un ki uggu ginnalu" (when the baby starts making the "un" noise, distribute uggu ginnalu wiz indian style milk/syrup dropper), "palukulaku chilakalu" (parrot made with sugar for the small words they start speaking), "adugulaku arisalu" (athirasam for the first steps), "gadapa dhatithe gaarelu" (when the baby steps out of house, vada) etc. So I decided to make the bobbatlu when Pranav fell flat on his tummy on 4th July 2011 at 7.10PM.
To make poli, there are 2 steps. Preparing the filling which is purnam/puran and the dough. The purnam mixture is then stuffed into the dough and rolled as chapathis either with the rolling pin or just with hand. I prefer preparing it with hand.
Ingredients for purnam/puran
- Channa Dal / Senaga Pappu / Kadala Paruppu - 1 cup
- Jaggery / Bellam / Vellam - 1 cup
- Dessicated coconut - 1/2 cup
- Cardamom Powder / Elaichi powder - 1.5-2 tsp
maida dough, blended channa dal, dessicated coconut, jaggery, elaichi powder
Ingredients for dough
- Maida / All purpose flour - 2 cups
- Turmeric - 2 pinches
- Salt - 1/4 tsp
- Ghee / oil - 3 tbsp
Preparing the dough
The dough should be prepared about 2 hours ahead of preparing the poli.
In a bowl, add salt, turmeric and 1 tbsp of ghee to the maida and prepare a soft dough with enough water. Add the rest of the ghee/oil and let the dough rest for 2 hours. It is important to add ghee or oil after preparing the maida to make the dough pliable.
Preparing Purnam
Pressure cook the channa dal for 2-3 whistles with very little water. The dal should not become very mushy. The texture of the dal should be maintained at the same time the dal should be cooked.
Once the pressure drops, spread the cooked dal over a clean cloth allowing the moisture to completely evaporate.
In a blender, blend the dal first without adding water. The texture should be like powder.
Heat a kadai and add the dal, jaggery and mix well. Keep the flame on sim-medium. Keep stirring till the jaggery melts and the mixture forms a dough. Add the coconut and elaichi powder and stir.
Keep stirring until it forms a good dough like consistency.
Once combined, remove to a bowl and cool.
Preparing the bobbatlu/puran poli
Take lemon sized ball of the maida dough and spread on a greased plastic sheet / banana leaf. Grease your hand with oil and spread the dough with your hand on the sheet.
Keep the purnam ball in it.
Seal it by bringing the corners of the chapathi to the center.
Grease the dough with oil and spread the dough like paratha. Make it as thin as possible without letting the purnam to come out of the maida.
Make the rest of the polis in the similar way.
Polis taste best when done with ghee. So heat a pan and grease with ghee. Place the prepared poli on it and roast on both sides by smearing ghee.
Once done from both sides remove to a plate. Tasty tasty polis are ready to be served.
Note:
- If you are sweet toothed, you can add 1/2 cup more jaggery. Also, the measurement depends on how sweet the jaggery is. Sometimes the jaggery is more sweeter in which case 1 cup should be more than enough.
- You could also make the purnam, by first putting the jaggery in kadai, melting it and then adding the ground channa dal.
- To easily make the cardamom powder, take few cardamom in a small mixer jar, add about 2-3 tsps sugar and grind to smooth powder and store. This way the cardamom shell is also not wasted and you get a very fine powder without much effort. Tip courtesy: Sanjay Tumma of vahrehvah.com
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2 comments:
Hello,
Tradition in our family is to make "Bobbatlu" with sugar, not jaggery and there are few recipes without quantities for ingredients.
Sudha, either way bobbatlu tastes yummy. isnt it? :-)
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