Boorelu - Sweet Potato Dessert is an Andhra cuisine dish. The stuffing anyways depends on region to region but also can alternate with various ingredients, which suits your palates . Here the delectable addition to Boorelu is the sweet potatoes, which is a also good source of nutrient. Already the sweet potatoes contain sugar, so sugar or jaggery can be used less to bring the richness in the desert. Outer crepe is covered by the batter made of rice and black gram lentils.
There are different varieities and colours in the Sweet Potatoes. The Sweet Potatoes are long and tapered, with a smooth skin whose color ranges between yellow, orange, red, brown, purple, and beige. Its flesh ranges from beige through white, red, pink, violet, yellow, orange, and purple. Sweet potato varieties with white or pale yellow flesh are less sweet and moist than those with red, pink or orange flesh. Sweet potato varieties with dark orange flesh have more beta carotene than those with light-colored flesh. Here in the recipe, I have used dark orange flesh to make the Boorelu.
The Batter for Boorelu needs some advance preparation. The Rice and Lentils has to be soaked in water for atleast 5 to 6 hours prior to grinding into a fine paste. After this the dessert can be made in no time.
Ingredients:
1. Sweet potatoes - 2 medium size
2. Jaggery - 3/4th cup (alter according to the sweetness of the potatoes or as desired)
3. Rice - One and Half cup
4. Black gram/Urad dal - 3/4th to 1 cup
5. Grated coconut - 2 tbsp (optional)
6. Cardomom powder - 1/2 tsp.
7. Oil for frying
8. Salt to taste
Cooking Method:
1. Clean and soak the rice and black gram/urad dal separately for around 5 hours.
2. Boil the sweet potatoes in water. Once done, drop this in colander. Once this becomes cool, peel the skin of it and mash this along with jaggery.
3. Take a pan and add this potato and jaggery mixture and stir it continuously until it blends well and forms a thick paste so that its easy to shape them. Once done allow them to cool. Add cardamom powder and grated coconut to it, mix well and form into lemon size balls and keep aside (If its getting too sticky just grease your hands with little oil/ghee). Here ghee is the clarified butter.
4. After the rice and black gram is soaked well for the said hours, drain the water from both and grind to a fine paste adding very little water. Let the paste be think. Mix both the batter well, add little salt and the batter is ready.
5. Heat up oil in a deep frying pan. Dip each ball in the batter, to get coated well. Drop these sweet potato balls slowly in the oil and fry them. Fry at least 4 to 5 balls at a time depending upon the size of the pan. Let the Boorelu gets cooked until it changes its colour and gets crispy.
6. Once its cooked and changes its colour, drain the excess oil on a tissue paper and serve warm.
