SweetloreEncyclopedia of World Sweets (534）
Boorelu
Boorelu
Ingredients and Preparation of Boorelu
Fried Sweets ／ Andhra Pradesh, India
Boorelu is a sweet popular in the Andhra region, made by coating a sweet lentil filling in batter and frying it. When the golden shell is broken open, a lentil filling sweetened with jaggery appears inside.
Boorelu and a cross-section showing the filling. 2021, Suman Tech / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Downscaled version provided by the source; content not changed after retrieval.
In one example, called poornam boorelu, chana dal is cooked until soft and mashed, then mixed with melted jaggery, coconut and cardamom and rolled into balls. The batter is made from soaked rice and urad dal ground with water. The balls of filling are dipped in the batter and fried in oil.
Pulses are used both inside and outside, but they play different roles. The chana dal inside gives the sweet filling its shape, while the urad dal outside is ground with rice into a liquid batter. Batter that is too thin does not cover the filling well, and batter that is too thick makes the coating thick, so the consistency of the batter that covers the filling is important.
A sweet lentil filling is also used in puran poli, which is wrapped in thin dough and cooked. In boorelu, the filling is kept as a ball, dipped in the rice-and-lentil batter and fried in oil, so when it is broken open, the fried coating and the lentil filling appear as separate layers.
Some versions use mung beans or coconut for the filling. Boorelu is sold at sweet shops in Vijayawada and is also served at festivals. There is also a custom of making it at home and offering it to a deity, so the same round sweet is found both in town shops and in homes.
Madhavi Kadaba, a culinary expert from coastal Andhra, writes that it is called sugeelu in the area where she grew up, while her husband’s family calls it sugunthalu. Some households offer it to the deity at the Varalakshmi festival; one household is said to make nine and eat them as a family after the worship. The names used on festival days and the ways it is offered also reflect each household’s customs.
Glossary
- Chana dal
- Split pulses of a close relative of the chickpea. Also cooked into a sweet filling.
- Urad dal
- A pulse widely used in South Asia. Ground with rice to make batter.
- Madhavi Kadaba
- A culinary expert who shares how to make home-style sweets.
- Varalakshmi
- One of the forms of the goddess Lakshmi, to whom prayers are offered at festival rites.
