Prepping for Sankranti - Gul Poli

Today I want to share with you my very first experience of making Gul Poli (Jaggery Flatbread). Over all these years, I have been making Tilgul every Makar Sankranti. Apart from Tilgul, a very popular dish made on occasion of Sankranti in Maharashtra is Gul Poli. I had been holding myself back from making it just because I always thought it to be something very difficult and time consuming. Unlike many other festive dishes, I had never actually seen the process of making these. So, in spite of knowing the recipe I never made it. This year I was determined to try these as my husband and I absolutely love this dish.

Gul Poli is a flatbread that is made by stuffing a mixture of jaggery, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds inside a dough. For me, the actual process of stuffing, rolling and cooking did not take very long, but the preparations took quite some time.

Gul Poli

(made 11 flatbreads of 6-7 inch diameter)

To make Gul Poli, you need the following ingredients -

For Dough:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tbsp besan (chick pea flour)
3 tbsp hot oil
1/2 cup milk
A pinch of salt

For Stuffing:
1 cup jaggery (grated)
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup poppy seed powder
1/4 cup besan (chick pea flour)
1-1.5 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
1/4 tsp cardamom powder

Before you make the stuffing, make the dough. The dough needs to rest before you roll it out.

Making the dough:

1. First sift all flours and add a pinch of salt.

2. Heat oil in a pan. The oil should be very hot.

3. Add oil to the flour mixture and incorporate well with the flour. To make sure that oil is well incorporated in flour, take a fistful of flour and rub it with your fingers. Continue this process until the oil is well mixed. To make sure, take a small quantity of flour and squeeze it in your palm. If the flour holds together, you can start making the dough. If not, add some more hot oil.

4. Now make the dough by adding milk to the flour mixture. The dough should be medium soft.

5. Once the dough is formed, knead it well. Apply some oil and cover it. Let the dough rest for a couple of hours (I let mine rest for 2 hours).

Making the stuffing:

1. In a pan, heat about a tablespoon of ghee (clarified butter) and cook besan on it on low heat until golden brown. It took me about 5-7 minutes.

2. Dry roast sesame seeds, let them cool completely and then grind to a powder.

3. Mix cooled besan, jaggery, sesame seed powder, poppy seed powder and cardamom powder until well blended. This takes quite an effort, so I mixed them in a food processor. All you need to do is pulse all of these ingredients together. Once well mixed, the stuffing looks like this -

Making the Flatbreads:


1. Take a small ball of dough and roll it out about 3-4 inches in diameter (I divided my dough into 10 equal sized balls before I started).

2. Take some stuffing and put it in the center of rolled out dough (I used 1/8 cup measure to have the same amount of stuffing for each flatbread. Since there is nothing binding the stuffing, it is in a loose form. So, I packed the measuring cup with stuffing and it was easier to stuff that way).

3. Now gather all edges of the rolled dough around the stuffing (like you would do for a paratha) and remove the excess dough.

4. Dip the stuffed ball of dough in flour and start rolling it out (I rolled mine about 6-7 inches in diameter, and about 1/8" inch thick).

5. Cook on a medium heat until brown spots appear. Apply ghee on both sides as you cook.

6. Let cool completely before you store. These stay good at room temperature at least for a week, and even longer if refrigerated.

The polis turned out just wonderful and barely survived a day. Now, I am looking forward to making another batch in a day or two.

Sweet Coconut Rice

I am back to blogging after two long months. I was studying the entire summer and am so glad that it is over. So no more studying for me now. The laziness really took over me for a couple weeks after the exam. My poor brain was so tired that I needed to relax for a while.

Over the past couple weeks I haven't been cooking anything much besides regular meals. I have spent those weeks watching movies and tv, going out shopping/window shopping, knitting and sleeping. Now I feel fresh and am all set to try those bookmarked recipes.

Two days back it was Narali Pournima and I thought I should make coconut rice at least this year. Narali Pournima is a Maharashtrian festival. A dish called 'Naralibhaat', which means coconut rice is a special preparation on this day. I remember celebrating even the tiniest festival as a kid. My grandmother used to make all those special dishes associated with each festival. Thinking of those days really makes me nostalgic. My granny made an awesome coconut rice. It's literally been ages since the last time I had it.

If you have a sweet tooth like I do, you would definitely love this rice. Another reason I like it is the combination of coconut and jaggery. I totally enjoy all those foods that have the coconut-jaggery combo. This rice is made by adding a mixture of coconut and jaggery to cooked rice.

Sweet Coconut Rice

To make this rice, you would need the following -
1 cup basmati rice
2 cups water
1.5 cups jaggery
1.5 cups shredded coconut, fresh or frozen (I used fresh)
A pinch of saffron threads soaked in a tablespoon of warm milk
1.5 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
5-6 pieces of cloves
1/4 cup mix of cashews and raisins (optional)
1/4 tsp cardamom powder

1. Before you start, wash the rice two to three times and keep it aside for about 30 minutes.

2. Cook the rice as you would normally do (1cup rice + 2cups water) and pour saffron milk over it. Now gently mix it with a fork. An alternative to making this rice is to saute washed rice on ghee and then cook it.

3. In a pan add about 1-2 tsp of ghee, jaggery and coconut. Let it simmer until coconut and jaggery are mixed well. Make sure that there are no lumps of jaggery. Once cooked, the mixture will look like this -


4. In another pan, heat a tablespoon of ghee and add cloves to it. Add cooked rice and saute for about a minute.

5. Now pour the mixture of jaggery and coconut over rice and gently mix everything together. Add nuts before mixing. Let it cook for another minute or so.

6. Add cardamom powder if you like. Serve hot or at room temperature.

I made this rice in a jiffy and forgot adding nuts to it. That is why you don't see any nuts peeking through the rice.

Happy Holi with Puranpoli

It is Holi today. Holi or the Festival of colors is a widely celebrated festival in India. In Maharashtra, Holi is celebrated by burning a pyre of wood, which symbolizes triumph of good over evil. Holi means Puranpoli.

Except for last some years, there had never been a year when I did not eat Puranpoli on the day of Holi. Last time I made Puranpoli was 4 years back. But it was so much of work, that I did not make it after that. This year both A and I were craving for Puranpoli, so I decided to make it. I would like to dedicate this post to my Mami (aunt) who taught me how to make it. I was about 20-21 when I first tried my hand at Puranpoli and I definitely give her the credit for it. Thank you Mami!

But, before I write this post let me say this loud and clear that though I know the process of making Puranpolis, I am not an expert. I must tell you that I make very good Puran and I can make a very good poli (chapati), but I am not that good when it comes to making Puranpoli :) Those who have tasted a real Puranpoli should know what I mean. Anyway... I still keep on trying hoping that one day I too will master this art.

Puranpoli is made by stuffing Puran (which is a concoction of cooked chana dal and jaggery) inside a whole wheat dough.

Ingredients for Puran:
1 cup chana dal (pressure cooked until soft)
1 cup jaggery
1/2 tsp of nutmeg powder or cardamom powder


In a deep pan, mix cooked chana dal and jaggery and let it cook thoroughly. The mixture will start to thicken and will look dry. To check if Puran is ready, make the spatula/spoon stand in it. If it falls or leans, it means that you need to cook it more. If the spoon stands strong, your Puran is good to go. However, to use this Puran for making poli, you need to make it soft and free of lumps. You can use a food mill or simply your food processor. Once you have this soft puran, add nutmeg powder or cardamom powder to it as per your liking.


To make dough for Puranpoli, mix the following in a bowl -
1 cup whole wheat flour (sifted)
1 tbsp all purpose flour (sifted)
1 tbsp sooji/rawa (sifted)
A pinch of salt

To the above, add water to form a loose dough. Once you form a loose dough keep adding oil until it becomes soft and elastic. You probably would need about a quarter cup of oil. Let it sit for about half an hour. When ready, the dough will look like this -


To make Puranpoli, start by taking a small ball of dough, and roll it out a little just so that you can stuff the Puran in. Now, take a ball of Puran and put it inside the dough and close all sides. Roll it out and cook both sides on a pan. Puranpoli is ready to be served.


Serve it hot or at room temperature. Puranpoli is generally served with ghee, milk or Katachi amtee (a tamarind based curry); ghee being the most popular.

Wish you all a very happy Holi!

Happy Makar Sankrant!

It is Makar Sankrant today. Sankrant as it is commonly called, is a harvest festival celebrated on January 14 every year. Til (sesame seeds) and gul (jaggery) are the star ingredients of this day. In Maharashtra, tilgul (sesame seeds and jaggery fudge) and gulpoli (jaggery filling stuffed inside whole wheat dough and then rolled out) are the two main preparations made on this day. We were lucky to always receive tilgul packets from India as some of our friends happened to be in India during December-January. This year there was no home delivery of Tilgul (pronounced: teel-gool) :( so I decided to make it myself.

Ingredients:
(makes about 20-25 squares of 1"x1")
1 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup coarsely ground peanuts (optional)
1 cup jaggery
2 tsp ghee (clarified butter)

Before you start, please note a couple of things. If you decide to use sesame seeds and peanuts the total mixture would be about 1 heaping cup. In this case use 1 cup flat of jaggery. You can totally skip the peanuts and use sesame seeds alone. In this case, use a heaping cup of sesame seeds and use exact one cup jaggery.

1. Toast sesame seeds in a pan and set aside.
2. Start melting the jaggery in a pan. Let it melt until it is of the consistency of thick sugar syrup.
3. Add ghee and stir well. Turn the heat off.
4. Mix in sesame seeds and peanuts.
5. Take out on a cookie sheet and roll out about a quarter to half of an inch thick.
6. Immediately cut it into squares while still hot, and then let the squares cool.


A couple more things to note: Put some ghee on the cookie sheet before pouring the mixture so that it will not stick. If you cover the mixture with a plastic wrap it will be easy to roll it out.

Happy Sankrant to everyone. "Tilgul ghya god bola" :) For those of you who celebrate Pongal... Happy Pongal!