Friday, July 19, 2013

Kalai daaler bori...............sun dried lentil kisses.

The weather's been really hot for some time and I have been craving for "Shukto".But there is no fun in making "Shukto" if you don't have "kalai daaler bori".The Indian grocer here limits his bori varieties to the Punjabi masala vadi and the moong daal vadi. I was lucky to find cholar daaler bori also but never kalai daaler bori. I decided to take advantage of this heat wave and try something which I had seen my mother doing during our summer vacations........a balcony full of bori's drying in the hot sun.Well my mother also used to make potato chips and sabudana papads......lets save those for some other day.
I am a big fan of keeping things simple.....so this bori has just 4 ingredients
Urad daal/Kalai daal-1 cup (soaked 2-3 hrs)
Salt-1 teaspoon
Asefotida/Hing-2 squirts
Red chili powder-1/2 teaspoon
Grind the lentils after draining all the water in which the lentils were soaked.I had to add about 3 tablespoons more during the grinding process to make my grinder stop making the angry noises.It takes some time to grind it into a smooth paste....it'll get there with constant scraping of the sides...eventually.Once the lentil is a smooth paste you can take the paste out in a bowl in which you can easily whip some air into the paste, by hand.I took out the blade from my grinder bowl and whipped the air in my blender bowl itself.Add in the salt,chili and asefotida/hing at this stage and whip.Trust your hand to tell you when this whipping is done.Mine said done........ in 5 mins.

Now pipe it out on a baking tray with some oil spayed on the surface.I tried to make the" bori" shapes like Hershey's kisses with my hands but gave up after 3 tries.I then took out the biggest decorating tip that I had a Wilton 1M and piped it out in rows....much better.


I baked the "boris" first at 200 F pre-heated oven for an hour and then decided that it would be a shame not to take advantage of the outside sun.So for the next 3 days the boris dried in sun.If the weather had changed i would have continued the drying in the oven.
I fried 2 of the boris before packing them in an airtight container.....tasty crispy airy fluffy and that is when I decided it was a successful attempt which deserves a post.  

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