Poli / Bobbattu / Baksham / Holige

Poli - Bobbattu - Baksham - Holige...... the name can be anything. But it tastes the same - heavenly. In AP, these are made especially for Ugadi, the Telugu New year's eve.

I have some 'sweet' memories associated with it. The day before Ugadi, I would be almost as busy as my mom - putting colourful rangolis all around the house, stringing fresh flowers to hang over the doors, setting up the puja mandir and grinding the dal and jaggery in a big mortar for making polis. Yes, we did it the old way and it was fun. My mom and I used to take turns grinding the dal and jaggery and talk about everything under the sun during that time - so busy yet so relaxed and talking.

To bring some of the past sweetness into the present, I've made all sorts of polis which I've listed at the end. But in my home, the most traditional and original one is the chana dal poli my mom makes on Ugadi which I've listed here.

Ingredients

Chana Dal - 1 cups

Grated Coconut - 1/2 cup

Grated Jaggery - 1/2 cup

All purpose flour (maida)- 1 Cup

Cardamom powder - 1 tsp

Salt - 1 pinch

Oil

Ghee/Butter - 1/2 cup

Steps

2 hrs before..

1. Make a soft dough of Maida with ghee/butter and water. Knead it well and rest it for 2-3 hours. It should be sticky.

2. Soak the chana dal for 1/2 hr.

1 hr before..

1. Pressure cook channa dal till it turns very soft. Drain the dal and grind to a smooth paste. Keep the drained water aside. It can be used to make a delicious rasam called poli charu or bakshala rasam.

2. Heat a pot and add the ground dal paste, coconut powder, cadamom powder and powdered jaggery. Cook till all the moisture is gone and they form a thick lump. Add cardamom powder, mix well and let it cool.

Prepare small lemon sized rounds for stuffing and Keep aside.

Take a plastic sheet or banana leaf smeared with oil. Place a medium sized round of maida dough and flatten it like small puri. Place the dal-jaggery stuffing in the center and close with maida dough from all sides. Roll out again like parathas.

On low heat, roast the polis on both sides till you see brown spots. You can use ghee or oil while doing this.

Serving ideas

Serve the poli with a small cup of ghee or milk.

Meal Today: Polilu smeared with desi ghee

Tips

.. For soft polis make sure you rest the dough well and get rid of moisture in the filling.

.. You can make the polis with tuvar dal or moong dal or a mixture of any of these (chana,moong,tuvar) dals.

.. Get creative and try out different fillings. For example you can make many alternative polis like -

Mango poli (Mix mango pulp while cooking the dal and jaggery in step 3)

Kesari poli (Instead of the dal-jaggery-coconut filling use rava kesari)

Carrot poli (Carrot halwa filling)

Almond/cashew poli (use almond/cashew halwa as filling)

Til (Sesame) poli ( pound the sesame seeds and jaggery together)

.. For a healthier version, use wheat flour for the dough and mix freshly grated coconut and honey to make instant stuffing. This Coconut-honey poli is fast, easy and healthy.