Paal PoLi
More than just a sweet dish, Paal Poli is an emotion for me. I vividly remember my childhood days when my brother and I used to get super excited on seeing Paal PoLi for our after school snack. Juicy soft puris soaking in sweetened saffron and cardamom infused thickened milk, with slivered almonds on top, yumm yumm yumm!
When I got married and moved to a foreign country I wanted a piece of the food culture from my mom’s place to go with me. Didn’t want to miss out the delicacies I enjoyed from childhood so decided to write down the recipes from my mom and grandma, just like a souvenir. And in that long list of recipes I had collected, this was the first recipe. To date I cherish the book in which I had written down all such tried and perfected recipes from my family. And I still remember the first time I made Paal PoLi, it was no way close to what my mom made. Over the years I’ve tried to perfect the recipe and this 100th post in my blog is dedicated to my dear grandma and her awesome cooking.
Happy to share a piece of my treasure with you guys 🙂
Ingredients
Fine semolina – 1 cup
Salt – a pinch
Ghee – 1 1/2 tbsp
Water – as needed
Full cream milk – 750 to 800 ml
Demarara sugar or any unrefined brown sugar – 3/4 cup
Cardamom powder – 1/4 tsp
Saffron – 1/4 tsp
Almonds (sliced) – 20 pieces
Pistachios (chopped) – 10 pieces
Cooking oil – as needed for deep frying the puris
Yield
~ 15 pieces
Prep time
1 hr to soak the dough
Cook time
30 mins
Method
1) In a wide bowl take semolina, salt and ghee together. Mix and rub the ghee thoroughly into the semolina with your fingers. Slowly add water to the semolina mixture and knead this into a soft pliable dough. Apply few drops of ghee on the surface of the dough ball to avoid the outer surface drying out. Cover the dough with a damp muslin cloth or a kitchen towel. Let this rest for an hour.
2) While the dough is resting, take the milk in a thick bottomed wide pan and boil it. Keep stirring continuously to avoid the milk sticking to the bottom of the pan. When the milk reduces to nearly two thirds of the original quantity simmer the heat fully and add saffron and cardamom powder.
3) Then add sugar and mix well. Boil the milk for a further 5 to 7 mins on medium heat. At this stage add most of the dry nuts (reserve some for garnish), mix once and switch off the heat. Cover the pan and set aside to avoid skin formation on the surface.
4) Heat a thick bottomed deep pan and add oil for deep frying. While the oil is heating take the semolina dough and knead gently for 2 to 3 mins. This will make the dough stretchy and soft. Keep stretching and folding inward and repeat this for a further 3 to 4 mins. Now divide the dough into small portions to make around 14 to 15 puris.
5) Place each portion of the dough between your palms and make it into a smooth round ball. Grease the surface and the rolling pin with some ghee and roll the dough balls into thin round puris about the size of your palm. Place them side by side on a parchment paper or a big plate.
6) Now gently slide each puri into the hot oil and wait until it puffs up. Carefully flip the puri and let the other side fry too. Remove each golden fried puri from oil and drop it directly into the warm milk mixture.
7) Press the puri gently into the milk without breaking it. Let it soak for a minute. Remove the soaked puris and stack them side by side on a wide plate. Keep repeating the process until you are done with all the puris. Pour the leftover milk onto the puris. Garnish with some chopped nuts and few strands of saffron. Your rich, tasty Paal PoLi is ready to be served now.
Notes
- Resting of the semolina dough is very important. Semolina soaks up liquid and tightens the dough. So make your dough a little too soft and allow the semolina to do the tightening work. Add a few tsp of milk if dough is not very soft. After the resting period, stretching and kneading the semolina dough is very important. This process helps to get soft puris.
- Do not reduce the milk too much because the puris will not soak properly if the milk is very thick. The milk also has to be reasonably warm for the puris to soak and
absorb the milk. If the milk has cooled down then heat it a bit on low
heat before you try to soak the puris. - I’ve suggested to use brown sugar in this recipe for convenience. Originally my grandma used to make Paal PoLi with jaggery. If you are familiar with it and like to use jaggery, then make a thick syrup with jaggery and add it to the boiling milk. Don’t add the raw jaggery directly to boiling milk without making it into a thick syrup because the milk will curdle.
- If you like this one, try my Paneer Kheer recipe as well!
