Ubbati / Puranpoli / Holige

Puranpoli in Marathi, Ubbatti in Konkani, Holige in Kannada is a traditional sweet made especially during the festival of colors - Holi. In other words, Puranpoli is  a sweet paratha stuffed with lentils.

Ingredients:
Whole Wheat Flour/Atta - 1 cup
All Purpose Flour/Maida - 1/2 cup
Chana Dal/Split Chickpeas/Split Bengal Gram - 1 cup
Grated Jaggery/Gul/Gud or Light Brown Sugar - 1 cup
Green Cardamom/Elaichi - 2 pods (seeds only)
Saffron/Kesar - few strands
Turmeric/Haldi - 1/4 tsp
Ghee/Clarified Butter or Oil
Salt

How to cook Puranpoli:

• Soak chana dal in water for 15 - 20 minutes. Crush the cardamom seeds and saffron in a mortar pestle to a fine powder.
• In a mixing bowl, add wheat flour, all purpose flour, turmeric and little salt. Add water and knead to form a soft dough. Add about 2 tsp oil or ghee and knead again for about 5 minutes. Use more oil if required. Cover and let the dough rest for about an hour.
• Wash chana dal well and cook dal in enough water till it gets soft. Dal must not be too soft or mushy. Use a strainer to drain the water from cooked dal. I used a Food Mill as a Puran Yantra to mash the cooked dal.
  

• Heat a thick bottom vessel. Add mashed dal and grated jaggery. I used 1 cup light brown sugar instead of jaggery. If you like the puranpolis less sweet, use 3/4 cup brown sugar or jaggery. Cook at low flame till moisture is lost. This part is a little tricky, because the stuffing must not be too dry.  Turn off the heat and add cardamom powder. Mix well and let it cool. This sweet stuffing is called as Puran.  Divide this stuffing into 8 balls.
• Divide the dough into 8 balls. Roll each dough ball as big as a Puri. Place the sweet stuffing in the center of each one and gather the edges to form a ball.  Roll each one like a chapati evenly and as thin as possible, dusting some all purpose flour.
• Roast these rolled Puranpolis on a griddle/tawa.

Serve Ubbati with ghee or Katachi Amti.