Wishes for a prosperous year

Sharing my love for cooking with people has always been of interest to me.

Though I’m from Andhra Pradesh, I’ve been living with my son in Bengaluru for the last couple of years now. I’ve always been interested in cooking. There’s nothing more that makes me happy than sharing the recipes I’ve learnt over the years.

I’ve hosted food lovers to Andhra cuisine with Conosh, a community dining experience, at least four to five times and it has always been a great experience.

I am comfortable cooking both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes, but I’ve made more non-vegetarian items when we have a large gathering. Next week is going to be festival season, even though the situation outside isn’t great.

But Ugadi is a celebration of new things and symbolises the birth of a new era. It gives you the assurance that new things mean a new start. Whether things are going to be well or not, the new year will give you the power to overcome it.

For generations now, there are certain traditions followed for Ugadi. You start by cleaning the house the day before and having the bath the next morning. You decorate your home with rangoli designs and pray for prosperity. You have ‘bevu bella’ as an offering, signifying sweetness and bitterness in life. You can go on to other programmes like going to the temple and then visiting family and friends.

And of course, the main event begins with the delicious food prepared. Certain dishes are a must for the festival. Ugadi Pachadi is one of them. Each ingredient used symbolises the essence of life. Jaggery stands for happiness, neem flower shows the difficulties of life, tamarind symbolises challenges, chilli powder shows the angry moments in one’s life and salt shows the interest in life.

Boorelu, or popularly known as poornalu, is another dish that’s a must-have during Ugadi. It’s made using chana dal, jaggery, cardamom, urad dal and rice.

It’s a sweet dish that’s used as an offering. You start the day having this dish. I look forward to making it in the coming week and celebrate Ugadi with my family.

How to make

Prep time: One hour

Boorelu

Number of Boorelu: 15-20 (based on the size)

Ingredients

Chana dal, 250 gm

Sugar syrup, 250 gm

Water, 100 ml

Elachi, 6

Oil to fry

For batter

Urad dal, 125 gm

Rice, 250 gm

Sugar, 100 gm

Salt, ¼ tsp

Method

Primarily it is made with chana dal, sugar and elachi powder and for the coating, we use urad dal and rice batter.

Boil the chana dal and strain it once cooled. Grind it like a powder.

Prepare sugar syrup and mix with the chana dal powder.

Add elachi powder and a pinch of salt to it which makes the taste perfect for the coating part.

For the batter, soak urad dal and rice for four hours and grind to a
fine batter. After the batter is prepared,
add sugar and little salt to it.

Next, make balls of chana dal and heat the oil for the boorelu for deep fry.

Dip the chana balls to the urad dal batter and add it to the hot oil.

Fry till it turns golden and tranfer it to a tissue paper to reduce the extra oil over it.