Undrallu

My neighbour Rani is from Andhra Pradesh. There are several wonderful recipes we enjoyed at her home. One I love most is the Undrallu. This is a naivedya recipe she made for Ganesh Chaturthi. I googled to search for the recipe. In the process found many types of undrallu. The one she makes has chana dal cooked with jaggery ie Puran. Puran is such a versatile stuffing that it is used to make Puranpoli, kadabu, karanji too. This undrallu is simply amazing when eaten warm. The cover is crunchy like medu vada and puran becomes slightly gooey when fried. This recipe is traditionally made using chana dal but we are going to twist it a bit and use whole green lentils instead. One for a digger!

Ingredients

Moog Puran:

1 cup moog

1/2 cup jaggery

few raisins and chopped nuts

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg powdered

1 table spoon fresh grated coconut.

Cover:

Ingredients

1/2 cup urad dal

1/2 tablespoon rice flour

Oil for frying

Step 1

To prepare puran cook the moog in a pressure cooker with water just covering the lentils. Drain through the strainer once cooked. It should be nice and soft. Now heat a large pan and melt the jaggery. Add the cooked moog and salt. Keep stirring till the mix starts leaving the sides of the pan. The mix should be good for making balls when cooled. Add the nuts and raisins, fresh grated coconut, nutmeg powder and keep the balls ready.

Step 2

For the cover. We need to soak the urad dal for an hour. Then drain it and grind with less water. Add the rice flour to the ground dal and make batter. The batter should be slightly thicker than we make for bhajji.

Step 3

Heat oil to a boil and turn down the heat to medium. Now dip the puran balls in the batter just like you do for Batata vada and fry on medium till done. Eat warm not hot else you will burn your tongue. Smell the nutmeg flavored puran when you dig your teeth into it.