Whole wheat bolis

It is Varalakshmi Vratham tomorrow said mom, yesterday. Brain starting generating all sorts of choices for sweets the ones that I either never tried like this one and the ones which were a flop in the consistency.

hmmm..........I thought, I asked mom "What kind of sweets and savouries must I make tomorrow?". She told me to make a sweet with jaggery and any savoury like vada. Since quite some days I was contemplating to try out the "Boliyal" as it is called in sourashtra, bobbatlu in telugu, boli in tamil. Well whatever it is called I really miss the boliyal that mom used to make at home. The stuffing is made of simple ingredients, easy to combine and moreover tastes so good !!

My recipe for the stuffing is adapted from the one mom used to prepare. The dough for the boliyal was a spontaneous one.

I got six 4 to 4.5 inch dia boliyals for the measurements below,

We need,

For the stuffing:

Channa dal - 1/4 cup

Jaggery - 1/2 cup

Coconut chopped - 1/2 cup

Cashewnuts, nicely chopped - 1/6 cup

Green cardamom, nicely crushed - 2

Ghee (clarified butter) - 1/3 tbsp

For the boliyal dough:

Whole wheat flour (chapathi flour) - 3/4 cup

Water - 3/8 cup (3/4 th of 1/2 cup)

Ghee (clarified butter) - 1/4 tbsp

Salt - a pinch

1. First, cook (I pressure cooked, saves time) the channa dal till soft. I used around 1 1/2 cups water.

2. Coarse grind the coconut in a mixer (without water, because you are going to have enough when the jaggery melts).

4. Melt the jaggery with around 2/3 cups water in which the dal was cooked. Just let all the jaggery melt. Keep aside for any impurities to settle.

3. Now heat a pan with the ghee in it, fry the cashewnuts till nearing golden. Now pour in the jaggery syrup, add the dal, coconut and the cardamom. Keep stirring till the water dries out, and you are able to combine the mixture and make a nice ball.

4. Now, add a pinch of salt to the flour slowly mix in the water after you get a nicely soft dough, a little softer than that for the rotis. Incorporate the ghee into the dough and knead nicely till the dough has uniform distribution of ghee. (It will have a nice smooth and soft appearance.)

5. Divide the dough and the stuffing into equal number of balls. Roll out the dough a little fill the stuffing cover it up completely with the dough, roll out the boliyal. Cook it like a paratha but with little more care because the boliyal tends to tear easily. Apply Ghee while cooking the boliyal. Serve warm.