My dear mother visited me in the West. She had brought a lot of goodies for me. And one of which is black gram lentil from my hometown. All the time we were planning her trip and packing, she instilled this desire in me for this black gram sweet called "ulundhu kazhi". And finally, when she was here, she promised me that she would teach me how to do it. And it never happened. We spent our precious days catching up and gossipping, that in the blink of an eye, she had to leave back. The black gram was just sitting there in my pantry untouched. She described the dish over the phone in such a way, that it painted a complex process in my mind. I was so shameless, that I asked a friend for the dish and she dearly made it for me twice. She was so nice that she offered to do it no matter how many times I ask. But one fine day, I mustered the courage to try this dish and to my surprise, it was not complex. It was pretty simple to make and it was DELICIOUSNESS.
I later found added reasons to make it more often(that it was full of protein & iron ). I would have done it even otherwise 😏
And here is this most healthy and delicious recipe. I like to have it in the morning for breakfast and sometimes as dessert.
Ingredients:
- Black gram lentil(ulundhu) -1/2 cup
- Jaggery(preferably palm jaggery) -1/3 cup
- Cardamom - 4 in no
- Water - 1 1/2 cup
- Salt - a pinch
- Ghee - 3-4 tbsp
- Roasted rice Flour - 1 tbspn - optional
Instructions :
- In a pot/wok, roast the black grams(ulundhu/urad dal). You can use black urad dal or white ones. I am using the split black ones which my mom brought.
- Let it cool down for some time and once it cools off, grind the black gram and the cardamom into a fine powder.
- Sieve the powder and grind it again if coarse.
- In the same pot/wok, add water and a pinch of salt and let it get heated up.
- Meanwhile, break the jaggery into small pieces or powder it(so that it gets dissolved easily) and add to the water.
- When the jaggery is completely dissolved, take it off the heat source and filter it (since it may contain dirt or any other impurities. If it doesn't, you can skip the filtering part)
- Take the jaggery water mixture off of the heat source and slowly add the powdered black gram to it slowly. (you have to keep stirring without lumps while adding the powder little by little).
- Stir/Mix it thoroughly without any lumps and put the pot back on the heating source.
- Keep stirring at intervals until the mixture thickens up and leave the sides without sticking.
- If you find the mixture is watery and doesn't come to the desired consistency, you can add some roasted rice flour little by little.
- Add ghee at this stage and mix it well. Cover it with a lid and cook it for a couple more minutes in reduced heat. Instead of ghee, some prefer sesame/gingelly oil. But I prefer ghee over sesame oil as ghee gives a nice aroma and offset the strong taste of black gram.
- As an optional step, some cashews can be roasted in ghee and added to it.
- The kali can be served as is or shaped per your imagination. I have made it into small balls for aesthetic purposes.
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