Poornam Boorelu Recipe | how to prepare Poornalu | Purnam Burelu
Poornam Boorelu Recipe for making poornalu, a traditional festive delicacy in South India. It’s a deep fried rice flour dumpling stuffed with aromatic lentil and coconut mixture.
Servings: 8 to 10
Ingredients
Batter for Outer layer:
- 1 cup Black gram dal/Urad dal
- 2 cups Raw rice regular sona masoori
- Salt to taste
For the filling or Poornam:
- 1 cup Split Bengal Gram chana Dal or chanaga pappu
- 2 cups water to pressure cook lentils
- ½ cup Desiccated coconut
- 1½ cups Powdered Jaggery
- ½ cup water to dissolve jaggery
- 1 teaspoon Cardamom Powder
To Deep Fry:
- Required oil for deep-frying
Instructions
To make batter for outer covering:
- Soak rice and lentils separately for 5 to 6 hours or overnight.
- Wash soaked rice and dal and drain away the water.
- Add required water while grinding the lentils first to a smooth textured batter.
- Take care that the batter is neither thick nor thin. I'm using an ultra wet grinder.
- Remove the lentils batter to a large bowl and now similarly grind the rice to a smooth batter.
- Remove this batter to the same bowl and mix both the batters using your hands adding salt to it. It should be similar to dosa batter consistency. Set aside in the refrigerator and prepare the filling.
Preparing the filling or Poornam:
- Wash and soak Bengal gram dal (minimum ½ an hour).
- Discard soaked water, add 2 cups of fresh water to the drained dal and pressure cook over high heat for 3 whistles. Then simmer to low heat for 5 minutes and turn off the heat.
- Open the pressure cooker once the pressure subsides. Drain any excess water in the dal and mash it.
- Take jaggery powder in a saucepan and add ½ cup of water to it.
- Heat over medium heat till the jaggery melts. Turn off the heat. (This is mainly done to remove any impurities in the jaggery)
- Transfer cooked lentils to a wide pan,
- To this add ½ cup of desiccated coconut.
- Now strain jaggery syrup into the mixture in the pan.
- Cook the mixture over medium heat till all the moisture evaporates.
- You get a thick consistency as shown in the pic below. Now turn off the heat.
- Add cardamom powder and mix well. Let the mixture cool completely.
- Make small sized balls out of the mixture. And set aside.
To prepare poornam boorelu and deep-fry:
- Remove the batter from the refrigerator and add a pinch of soda and mix well.
- Mean while heat oil in a deep frying pan or kadai over medium heat.
- Once the oil is hot enough, do a test with a pich of the batter. If the oil is hot enough the batter rises to the top immediately.
- Dip each ball of stuffing (poornam) in the batter carefully using fingers or a spoon and coat it well and swipe off the excess drippings and drop them gently into hot oil. Ensure the Poornam is completely covered. I usually use my fingers but today to click pictures, I had to use a spoon.
- 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.
- You can repeat frying for a minute or two for an extra crust,
- Serve them hot/cold or at room temperature. I love to have them hot,