Super Sunday

This Sunday was a bit different as the menu for lunch wasn’t the run of the mill stuff.  It was a mix of Western and Southern India. My father-in-law wanted to have puran poli (rotis stuffed with jaggery and ground chana dal)  and then I added another sweet dish to it – Modak 
It was indeed a Super Sunday as coined by my team mate Amol Bhat considering his and my other team members valuable contribution in office that too on a weekend and also because of my exotic lunch menu. Poor guys they had to slog on a Sunday.

Sunday Thali

Puran Poli is a Maharashtrian dish which is had for lunch or dinner on special occasions. 
Ingredients –

• Chana Dal
• Jaggery pounded
• Cardamom/ Nutmeg
• Ghee

PURAN (Stuffing)-Boil the chana dal such that its well cooked. Drain water and keep it aside. The water could be used for preparaing rasam of your choice. Maharashtrians prepare a specific gruel/amti  using the dal water. The chana dal needs to ground using the puran yantra. I ground it in the mixer as I didn’t have the yantra. Without adding water the dal needs to be crushed to a paste. Once done transfer it to a kadai or wok and add jaggery as per taste. You need to cook it on low flame till the jaggery melts and the mixture is lumpy to form balls. POLI –Prepare a dough of wheat flour and salt as per taste. Roll the dough to form and place balls of the puran in the center. Close it to cover the filling completely. Roll it to the size of a chapati and cook it on a tawa/pan till both sides are done by adding ghee.Serve with milk or amti and liberally poured ghee. 

Modaks

Modaks/ Kolukattai are Lord Ganesh’s favourite and are offered to him for Ganesh Chaturthi. This dish could be prepared in rice flour or wheat flour. It can be deep fried or cooked on steam.The receipe here is the wheat variant cooked on vapour.Ingredients – Filling –

• Coconut
• Cardamom
• Sugar

Grate coconut and cook with jaggery till it melts and the syrup dries off. You could sprinkle cardamom powder.Covering –Prepare dough of wheat flour with less water added.  Grease the modak mould with ghee. Make balls of the dough and fill it into the mould to cover the sides. Next fill the stuffing into it and remove excess dough if any. You could either deep fry or steam it.  Serve with ghee.