Bellam garelu is a traditional Indian sweet – it’s crispy n crunchy outside and succulent n gooey inside. It’s a special and favourite dessert in my family.
Ingredients:
- 2C urad dal (husked n split/whole black gram)
- Oil for deep fry
- 2C grated jaggery
- 3C water 💦
- Pinch of powdered cardamom
How to prepare?
- Soak the urad dal in water for 4 hours.
- Strain the water, and grind (use grinder rather than mixer) the dal to a very fine and fluffy paste. <This s the key to this recipe, only if the paste is very fine n fluffy it will absorb the jaggery syrup.>
- In a saucepan add jaggery and water and a pinch of cardamom powder and boil until it forms a thin sticky syrup.
- In a frying pan (iron kadai s best for deep frying) add oil to deep fry.
- Take a bowl of water, dip your hand in water and also wet n wipe a sheet or a leaf with water (so that the batter doesn’t stick). Then take a small ball sized batter and on the leaf flatten it into a vada. Dip one finger in the bowl of water again and make a hole in the centre as show in the pic.
- Once the oil is hot is heated, gently drop the vada into it <caution: stay a little far away from the frying pan, as sometimes the oil splitters>. You can add few more vadas n fill the frying pan.
- Once it turns golden brown gently turn it to another side using a ladle with holes.
- Once both the sides are brown n done, using the ladle, remove them from the oil <wait for few seconds until the oil drips down from the ladle into the frying pan> and drop in into the above prepared hot jaggery syrup.
- Let them soak until they completely absorb the jaggery – you will know by the colour and weight, they tend to drown to the bottom.
- Gently remove them from the syrup into the serving bowl and enjoy the bellam garelu!
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