Boorelu | Poornalu | Sugeelu | Sugunta | Sukkinunde | Suzhiyan Recipe

I hope all my Telugu and Kannada friends had celebrated a wonderful Ugadi.Ugadi is one of the most important festivals for us,I have mentioned more details about UGADI festival in my last year's post for Ugadi-check it here. While we make Hollige(Obattu) ideally for Ugadi festival,I wanted to make something different this time as it gives me an opportunity to try and learn other traditional recipes.

Coming to today's recipe 'Boorelu' or 'Poornalu' as they are called in Andhra and 'Sugeelu' or 'Sukkinunde' in Karnataka and 'Suzhiyan' or 'Sugiyan'.All these are different names and of course even the preparation methods are slightly different.The fillings and the outer coverings differ from place to place.While many use chana dal as filling for this, traditionally we used toor dal in the filling and is prepared in the similar manner like how we make hoorna(filling) for hollige.The outer covering is again made up of lots of variations like urad dal batter,maida batter and rice-urad mixture(like we make) and even the proportions might be different in various households.
As a kid, I was not very fond of sweets but this is one of those sweets which I used to like even then.As they are mildly sweet and deep fried I used to relish them and used to gobble them with out complaining.My mom is an expert in making them but I never tried making them on my own earlier. I hence took this as an opportunity to learn and make my favorite sweet for this auspicious festival.I must admit that one needs enough practice to prepare these,I have mentioned few notes with my experience and I hope it would be useful if you are attempting them for the first time.
Boorelu | Poornam Boorelu | Sugeelu | Suzhiyan Recipe:
(makes around 20-25)

Ingredients:

for Outer layer:
1 cup Urad dal
2 cups Rice(regular sona masuri variety)
Salt to taste(1/2 tsp)
a pinch of cooking Soda

for filling:
1 cup Toor dal
1 cup grated Jaggery
1/2 cup grated fresh Coconut
2-3 Cardamoms
1 tsp Ghee

Oil,for deep frying

Method:

for Outer covering:

• Soak rice and urad dal together overnight.
• Next day in the morning,Add one cup of hot water while grinding the rice-urad mixture to a smooth textured batter.
• Take care that the batter is neither thick nor thin,it should be similar to dosa batter consistency.
• Add salt to it and let it ferment for 4-5 hrs .

for poornam(filling):

• Soak toor dal for 10 mins
  
• Bring 5-6 cups of water to a boil in a deep vessel and add ghee and soaked toor dal and let it cook until you feel it is almost cooked.Dal should hold its shape and should be firm,it should not become mushy.Press a grain of dal with your fingers to get to know whether the dal is cooked properly or not.
• Strain this cooked dal over a strainer and let it drain the water and cool completely.Reserve this water to use it in making delicious holige saaru.
• Heat 2 tbsp of water in a kadai and add grated jaggery to it and let it melt over low flame.
• Now add strained toor dal,grated fresh coconut and let it cook along with jaggery until you get a uniform mixture.Now add elaichi powder and mix well and switch off the flame.Let the mixture cool completely.
• Grind to a smooth paste( do not add water) in a mixer.
• Make gooseberry sized balls out of the ground mixture and slightly flatten them and keep them covered until its usage.

for making Boorelu:

• Add a pinch of soda to the rice-urad mixture and mix well.
• Mean while heat oil in a kadai over medium flame until it is hot.
• Dip each flattened stuffing(poornam) in the rice-urad batter carefully using fingers and drop them slowly in the oil.
• Pour oil using the slotted spoon from the sides(like how we do for vadas) which helps in puffing up the boorelu nicely.
• Turn it to the other side and fry until light golden brown in color.

Serve them hot/cold or at room temperature.

Notes:

1. Rice-urad mixture for the outer layer should neither be thick nor very thin.If the outer layer is very thick it will reduce the sweetness of boorelu as the outer layer would be thick.
2. While cooking toor dal,take care not to over cook it.Cooked toor dal should be firm to touch and should be cooked inside properly.
3. The consistency of the filling should be little tight(not very soft) otherwise there is possibility that the filling might splutter while frying them.If your filling is slightly soft then try to refrigerate it for few hours or place them on kitchen towel to remove extra moisture or you can even microwave the mixture for a minute and leave it aside.This will help in hardening the mixture a bit.
4. For a Vegan version avoid ghee in the recipe.
   

Variations:

1. You can replace toor dal with chana dal and follow the same recipe.
2. You can even replace jaggery with sugar and follow the same recipe.

You can see my previous year's Ugadi specials here and here.