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As the name says it all, Paal Poli is a dessert made by soaking fried pooris in flavoured milk. Yes, it's just simple as it sounds! The best Paal Polis, I savoured are the ones made by my son-in law's grand ma, who resides in her beautiful ancestral home, in the neighboring village, Peruvalanallur! These cuties were what she opted to make, while throwing the feast for her grand kids. My husband and myself couldn't make it to the village for her heartwarming lunch as the post wedding paraphernalia had left us thoroughly exhausted. Back from the village late evening, my daughter hopped in with a lovely container in which soft paal polis were packed, with loads of love and care. I could feel that when the first bite hit my taste buds, and ah! I found myself devouring the heavenly morsels!!
I called her up, the next minute and typed the recipe, right away in my blogger. The simplicity of the dish surprised me that I had to suppress my urge to rush into the kitchen, knead the dough, fry the pooris and soak them, immediately!!
It had been been several months since then and had wanted to prepare the sweet as the first recipe for the year, but then got postponed. Better late than never!
Peruvalanallur athai's Paal poli, recreated, with lots and lots of love... :)
Paal Poli
Makes 8 large or 10 medium or 13 small sized pooris
Serves 4-6
Prep time: 20 mins
Standing time; dough: 1-2 hours
Soaking time of the finished dessert: at least an hour to *one day
Ingredients:
100 gms all Purpose Flour / Maida - ( this is between 3/4 to 1 cup)
2 tbsps rava (sooji/semolina) ( not roasted)
A pinch of yellow food colour
50-60 ml luke warm water
Oil- for deep frying
600 ml milk (I used milk with 3% fat content)
1/4 cup heaped white sugar
A fat pinch saffron
A few almonds and pistachios, chopped, to garnish
Method:
Whisk together maida and rava in a bowl. Measure 60 ml of water in a microwavable jug and warm a bit. Just to make it luke warm. Dissolve a pinch of edible yellow food colour. Add to the flour mix little by little and knead well until you get a soft pliable dough like poori dough. I needed exactly 55 ml of water. Make into into a ball and cover with a wet kitchen towel or cling film and rest it for 2 hours. We do not want the ball to get dried up in the outsides. So make sure you cover it to retain the moisture. After a couple of hours, knead again and roll equal sized balls ( 8 or 10 or 13 acc to your size preference) I divided into 8 balls to make larger pooris. Also I had spread them into slightly elongated ones than perfect rounds, since as to get larger semicircles as we fold them into half for serving.
Heat oil for frying the pooris. Fry one at a time. Let them the soft and not crisp. Drain in paper towels so as to absorb excess oil. Keep them aside.
Soak saffron strands in 1/4 cup hot milk for 10 minutes. Heat the remaining milk in a sauce pan. Add sugar followed by the saffron milk and bring to a boil. Simmer for a minute in low flame and switch off. You don't have to thicken the milk.
Arrange the pooris in a tray, half folded and pour the hot milk over them generally so as to soak them. after an hour you may need to add more, as they absorb the milk. Whole pooris soaked in milk as such weren't looking pretty in pictures. So had to revise the garnish idea to make the dessert prettier. Thanks to Raks, my lovely buddy ♥ :))) for the pretty looking garnish idea :).
They have to get soaked at least for 2 hours before serving. *You can prepare Paal polis,
soak them up the previous day and refrigerate, for your guests. Thus, your dessert is done, hours ahead! Oh yeah! I love them chilled :)
Garnish with chopped nuts (microwave for a minute and toss). Sprinkle a few strands of saffron before you serve.
Sure to receive compliments!
