Boorelu
It’s festival time! Sankranti, our most auspicious harvest festival is just around the corner - time for indulgence, good food, new clothes and lot of fanfare. Preparation for Sankranti, begins weeks in advance at my grandmother’s (ammamma) home and is always centered around fun and traditional festive foods. Sankranti evokes memories of the warmth and tantalizing aroma of food being cooked in ammamma’s kitchen that would perk up our palates and endless rounds of hot-piping sweets and savories would disappear as soon as they were cooked, much before lunch time..:).
Boorelu, one of the most popular sweets prepared in the homes of Andhras, symbolic of joy and festivity, completely embodies the idea of a traditional Andhra sweet to the hilt.
This perennial favorite is a deep-fried sweet ball, the filling of which is prepared from bengal gram, jaggery or sugar, coconut and cardamom powder being the flavor enhancer, which is dipped in a batter made from black gram dal and rice and deep-fried to a golden brown color. Here’s how to make these delicious treats with a golden hue and redolent with cardamom flavor to indulge yourself this festive season.
Boorelu Recipe
Prep & Cooking: 1 hour, Soaking: 4 hours
Makes approx 25 boorelu
Cuisine: Andhra
.
1/2 cup cup black gram dal/urad dal/minappappu
1 cup rice
1 cup bengal gram/channa dal/sengapappu
1 cup sugar or 1 cup grated jaggery (adjust according to your choice)
1/4 cup fresh grated coconut (optional)
3/4 tsp cardamom powder
salt to taste
oil for deep frying
1 Drain water from the black gram dal and rice and grind to fine paste adding very little water. It should be like a thick dosa batter. Add a pinch of salt and mix well. Leave aside covered.
2 Cook bengal gram with just enough water to cover the dal. The dal should be just cooked and hold shape. Drain any left over water from the dal after its cooked. Add jaggery or sugar to the dal and use a masher to mash them together till it blends well.
3Take a heavy-bottomed vessel and add the ground dal paste and cook till it appears like a thick paste, stirring continuously as the dal tends to stick to the vessel. Turn off heat and cool.
4 Add grated coconut, cardamom powder and mix well. Shape small bite sized balls like shown in the picture above.
5Heat enough oil in a wide heavy bottomed vessel for deep frying the balls. Dip each ball in the batter and let it coat evenly and place in the oil and deep fry till golden brown and crunchy. You can deep fry a batch of four to five balls depending on the size of the vessel.
6Serve warm. Store in an air tight container as they last for at least two days.
Note:
Alternately, you can cook the jaggery or sugar till it melts and then add the mashed dal to the syrup and cook it till it forms a thick paste. Ensure that the rice-dal batter is thick so that it coats the balls evenly and holds shape. The batter should not be runny. Just before eating, make a small hole on top and fill it with a little ghee or melted butter. Its purely optional though. You can use the left over batter to make savory balls by adding a little more salt, cumin seeds and green chilli paste. Deep fry these savory balls till golden brown.
By sailu • Jan 8th, 2007 • Category: All Recipes, Andhra Recipes, Dals & Legumes, Desserts, Festival recipes, Flour Recipes, Indian Sweets, Naivedyam (Prasadam), South Indian Recipes
Thanks for reminding me of Sankranti! I had no clue!Love this sweet,never made it before.I will make something for the family too.Thanks Sailu.
Brought back nostalgic memories of Sankranti and home…Thanks Sailu for the recipe…
wow..amazing, Sailu..
First time here through google search on andhra food!!
It’s so nice to meet an Andhra blogger like me..
And I promise this’s not my last visit!!
Nice work here..thank you.
Happy new year Sailu. This is a great recipe. Thanks for sharing
Hi Sailu, booralu chaala bavunnayi..typical festival sweet, and the plate lined with banana leaf makes it look so nice and traditional!
Great recipe as always, Sailu. Dropping by to wish you and your family a very happy 2007! Always a joy to visit your site.
Delicious looking boorelu Sailu. The last time I made them, my purnam was too watery and I ended up with pakodi looking sweet. I would love to try them again for Sankranthi.. Thanks for the recipe.
Hi Sailu,
Boorelu are my all time favourites. Its been a while i made them.
They look delicious…
Happy Sankranthi.
Madhavi.
Sailu,
Gud to see you on my blog..thanks for your compliments. And you’ve got a great going here,indeed..I’ll definitely look for more and more works from you..It’s just like a feast for a food lover like me.
Me,from Kakinada..and my maternal grand parents’re from vizag!!
btw you’re blog rolled..
And Happy Sankranthi!
My best wishes to you and to your family..
Dear Sailaja, Very nice presentation. We have one sweet like this called sooyam in tamil. A good combination of sweet and batter. Tks for sharing. Viji
Sailu,
Save all those great snacks for me too. I will be visiting Vizag this time when I come to India (planning this March)
Awesome presentation.
Cheers,
Mythili
Wish u and ur family a very very happy new year!! ur recipes are very good and like them all, to eat as well as to cook. I generally make boorelu for vinyayaka chavathi. Thanks for sharing them.
hai sailu..
me first time here..u have done a wonderful job..looks great..
liked it..
and poornam boorelu are mouthwatering….happy sankranti…
aren’t they called poornaalu…
They also go by the name ‘purnam boorelu’ in certain parts of Andhra.
Hi Sailu,
We call this sweet as suyyam and your black eye bean vada looks nice, Thanks for sharing. Happy New Year and Sankaranthi
Hi Sailu,
Awesome pictures!
Should the batter be fermented over night just like dosa batter?
No, Usha, you don’t need to ferment the batter.
thanks sailaja garu.manchi vantakalani andisthunnaduku. meeku mee family members andhariki sankranthi subhakanshalu
Boorelu is a new dish for me. However, the filling is similar to the holige or obbattu or pooran poli filling. I am planning to prepare this for Sankranti. Will keep you posted on how it turns out. Thanks for sharing your traditional recipes.
Hi Sailu.. I will attempt another comment though it seems lately mine don’t get through here — I hope at least you can see it! Wishing you all the best for the New Year
Linda
Dear Sailu, I just wanted to add, my MIL makes the same, but instead of making fresh batter, she gets milled one cup udid dal with two or two and a half cups rice. This powder with just enough water she makes into a dosa-like batter (like the batter of besan for bhajjis) and leaves for about 15-20 mins before using, the boorelu tastes just as good - even traditional experts cant tell the difference. the rest of the powder is then used later to make ‘jantikalu’ (a kind of sev). this saves time (soaking and grinding), expecially when you meed to make them before you sit for puja, and before the kids get up!
nice pics, all the best, uma
Hey Sailu, thanx for the recipe. I made poornam boorelu yesterday for varalakshmi vratam and they were a real hit!!
[…] methods. Hence I am giving a link for reference. It looks good and should work. Hope that helps ? Boorelu Indian Food & Andhra Recipes from Sailu’s Kitchen L, Kamla __________________ Kamla Finest Posts of IL | Suggestions & Feedback! | Ideal Indian […]
Sorry, how long do the black gram dal and rice need to be soaked in water for?
Hi Sailu,
I tried making the boorelu this evening, it was just awesome.I used jaggery (1 1/2 cups instead of 1) . I sent them across to a telugu friend of mine and she gave me 100/100. So you get a 100 for this recipe.
hi sailu,
all ur recipes r too good and i like ur way of presentation a lot.
nice site for recipes … can i tell u some other new recipies which u can keep in the site… if yes please mail me…. ok byeeeeeeeeee
Dear Sailu,
really…very very interesting. whenever i made boorelu i found the outer part the topu one very hard. it is not soft. please help me.i dont belong to eastern part of a.p.i am from anantapur dist where we dont make this.i used rice and dal in 2:1 ratio only. please solve my problem.