7 cups burfi - Mithai making nirvana

Hope you all had a good weekend, we enjoyed ours and had the finale of Summer over the past 3 days. Had some guests on Saturday, watched some movies on Sunday and Monday, got ready for another school year. Back to school for DD from today, another year has started. Time seems to be just flying. I miss my little girl and the cuddly times but so proud of the confident young woman she is growing into. It has been a good Summer, contrary to what many said, weather has been extremely pleasant, I am happy that we all settled in without major 'hitchkies' and completed a full year in the new home.

So, to celebrate a good year, good summer and also to wish for sweet tidings in the future, I made some yummy mithai (burfi) last evening. This is called 7 cups burfi (I would imagine it was some one who was extremely creative on the cooking side but had exhausted those streaks when it came to naming their creations :-)), the name is just suggestive of the quantity of ingredients that go into the mithai. Mithais or burfis are Indian desserts made in different ways but usually ending up as a semi firm - firm piece of sweet comparable to fudges. For a long time, I had not ventured into the mithai making as I always thought getting the right consistency is for experts only :-). I am slowly feeling confident that I can manage burfis in the kitchen now.

This is a very 'novice friendly' recipe with no syrup involved, a few things need to be kept in mind while making this mithai which applies equally well for all mithai making, look for those tips in the notes section below. As nammamma puts it 'Ganapati maadbeku andre kashta, avarappanna maadokke enu kashta? (It is difficult to make an idol of the Hindu diety Ganesha/Ganapati as he has eyes, trunk, mouth, flappy ears and so many other details to be taken care of but making his father Shiva represented by a lingam - a very easy to depict structure should be totally effortless.). So here is a very simple recipe of the 7 cups mithai you can attempt in your kitchen and enjoy these melt in the mouth desserts.

The cup referenced below can be any size, use the same container for measuring all the ingredients. I used my small katories from the kitchen.This is a semi firm mithai with a coconut flavor, the pieces hold their shape well and can be kept for 4-5 days . If you want to extend the shelf life, put it in the refrigerator.

What do you need to make 7 cups mithai? 
1 cup kadle hittu/besan/gram flour (use the fine powder)
1 cup grated coconut (fresh or frozen)
1 cup ghee/clarified butter melted to liquid form
3 cups sugar
1 cup milk (I used 2%)
1/4 Tsp fresh ground cardamom

Other needs: 
1 - 8 inch pan or steel plate with edges to spread the mithai
1 heavy bottom pan to make mithai.

How do you make 7 cups mithai? 

• Prepare the 8 inch pan by spreading 1/2 tsp of melted ghee, keep aside. 
• Heat the heavy bottom pan on medium heat, add all the ingredients and mix them well. 

• Keep stirring constantly with a spoon. 

• The color changes to a slightly darker shade and you start to smell the roasted besan in your kitchen. 

• Continue to stir until milk reduces and all the ingredients start to come together into a soft mass. At this stage, you will also notice ghee oozing out from the sides and the mixture looks dry.

• Add cardamom powder and mix well.

• Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and with either wet hands or a flat spatula, spread it into a even thickness in the pan and smoothen the top. 

• Using a sharp knife, make markings for the pieces - do not do all the way to reach the bottom of the pan/plate at this time. 

• Let the mithai cool down before cutting them into pieces of desired shapes. 

Notes: 

• Always keep the heat on medium low - the basan needs to get cooked while you make the mithai. High heat burns the mithai while fast cooking renders basan uncooked/undercooked. 
• I use my thick non stick sauce pan as this has a handle which I can hold while mixing. 
• One of the readiness tests I do on the mithai is to wet my hands, take a small portion (~1/4 tsp) in my hands and roll into a ball. If the ball holds the shape, does not stick to your fingers and stays up, the mixture is ready to be poured into the pan. 

• I have made this burfi without milk and reduced sugar - turns out fabulous too. We call it '5 and 3/4 cup burfi' or '4 platforms behind Hogwarts express' - <wink>, <wink> for any Harry Potter fans out there. Just eliminate the milk and use a little less than 3 cups sugar. I recommend using milk as it further softens the texture but try this variation if you want an extended shelf life.
• Make the markings for the mithai as soon as you have spread the mixture into the plate. This helps cut the mithai into nice looking pieces.

• My Indian grocery store carries two kinds of basan - one slightly rough and meant for making boondi or laddoos and the other a super fine powder used in burfis, kadhis and dhoklas. I use the super fine powder in this recipe.

• You can use nutmeg powder for a different flavor or just enjoy the mithai with the roasted basan & coconut flavor.

Poli Purnam Boorelu - Varalaxmi Vratam sweet

Hope everyone had a good weekend, we had a good one starting with the Varalaksmi festival on Friday. There has been some planning going into the pooja preparation and menu finalization for the past week or so, now that my in-laws are here with us, we have 2 additional brains for menu ideas :-). Amma said we had to make 9 varieties for the naivedya/naivedyam (offering to God after the pooje), so I kind of tried to pick atleast one each of everyone's favorite in addition to the traditional must-haves and we actually ended up with a wonderful spread of dishes and all of us including some friends who came in the evening enjoyed the food.

Food is such an integral part of any festival, right? I notice it is true without any barrier of region or religion. I guess, for me that is where my earliest food related memories are, any festival or get together at home, nammamma would be up early and in the kitchen preparing variety of dishes, there were days on which we kids were strictly forbidden from entering the kitchen and my uncle would be in charge of driving any stray kids away from the place, I even remember him writing 'No Entry' on the kitchen door to drive home the point :-). Some of the festivals, nammamma would prepare things ahead of time (Sankranthi ellu being one of them) but most times, she would cook the naivedya dishes only on the day of the festival after bathing. We prepared all of the naivedya dishes on Friday morning too and so the pooje started a little late and took us right into lunch time which was perfect. We were famished, food was good and we had a great time.

Here is a quick look at our naivedyam thali(s), I will try to get all of them into the blog as soon as I can. Though I took the pictures for every dish, I don't have enough of them especially for a stand alone blog post, so some of them will be featured only when I make it next time :-).

But today's post is dedicated to a traditional Andhra delicacy - poli purnam boorelu. The name is a mouthful, so let me break that out for the uninitiated. Poli~steamed, purnam~sweet stuffing. This is a sweet prepared in weddings and other auspicious occasions, the process is slightly laborious but the end result will simply mesmerize you with taste. Ingredients are simple, used every day in the kitchen. There is another very popular form of boorelu with the chana dal stuffing (my personal favorite only because I like jaggery based sweets more than those made with white sugar) which is simply called purnam boorelu but the poli purnam boorelu is equally delicious. 

The stuffing is made with moong dal, sugar and lot of cardamom(yes, use lots and freshly pounded for flavoring), the outer shell is made with a dosa like batter made with urad dal and rice. Stuffing is dunked in the batter and deep fried to a golden brown, crispy perfection. I am told that this is traditionally eaten by making a hole in the middle of a hot, crispy boorelu and adding a spoonful of ghee before popping it into the mouth. Although, we didn't go to that extreme indulgence, we completely enjoyed the sweet, cardamom flavored, protein packed boorelu.

What do you need to make Poli Purnam Boorelu? 
The proportions below make about 18-20 golf ball sized boorelu. 
Ingredients for stuffing:
1 cup moong dal/pesara pappu
3/4 cup sugar (adjust to taste if you like sweeter)
4-5 cardamom - peeled and seeds freshly pounded
Ingredients for covering: 
1/2 cup urad dal/uddi pappu/minapappu
1 cup rice
Other ingredients: 
Oil to deep fry

How do you make Poli Purnam Boorelu? 
Making the stuffing: 

• Soak moong dal in 3 times water for 2 hours.
• Wash and drain the moong dal, grind it with as little as possible water to a paste. 

• Put spoonfuls of the ground paste into idli moulds and steam it for 15 minutes until the dal is cooked. 

• Once the steamed cakes cool down, break them into pieces and run it through your mixer on pulse mode to further break them, add the sugar and blend it once with the dal. 

• This mixture will be slightly wet because of the added sugar, add the freshly pounded cardamom and working with your hands, knead the entire mixture for a couple of minutes until the consistency is good to make balls out of it.
• Make golf sized balls with this mixture and keep aside.

Making the covering:

• Soak the urad dal and rice together in water for 3 hours until they soften.
• Wash, drain the dal-rice mixture and grind it in the mixer into a batter. Add water while grinding but make sure you get a dosa consistency batter at the end. 
• This batter doesn't have to ferment and does not have to be overly smooth. Keep aside.

Boorelu assembly:

• Heat the oil for deep frying preferably in a wide pan. Check the readiness by dropping a small droplet of the batter in the oil, if it comes right up to the surface, oil is ready. 
• Take the prepared stuffing ball, dunk it in the batter, shake it to remove any extra batter and drop it carefully in the hot oil. Repeat for the remaining stuffing to just fill your frying pan.

• Leave the boorelu to cook untouched for a couple of minutes before slowly turning them over to cook on the other side. 

• When the boorelu reach a golden brown crust on all sides, take them out of the oil onto a paper napkin. 

Notes: 

• Do not soak moong dal for more than a couple of hours as it tends to become oily when fried. 
• Breaking the steamed moong dal idlis into fine powder along with sugar takes some hard work with your hands, make use of the mixer to pulse it down as much as possible before manually kneading it to make balls.
• The batter covering should be flowy but not watery, it should coat the stuffing well at the same time not becoming very thick, adjust the consistency as needed. 
• Use fresh pounded cardamom for best flavor burst.
• You can make dosas with any extra batter, i added a spoonful of fine sooji, salt and the dosas were delicious.