Festivals are the time, when you are free to dig into rich aromatic food. Rakshabandhan is yet another day to celebrate food apart from the sibling-bond. So, I decided to rejoice the day with my family with some special food and nothing is as festive as “Pooris”. But pooris are just so common, and spontaneously, I recalled the Radha Ballabhi made in one of the food shows.

Radha-Ballabhi, a fancy name, sufficient enough to bring the fancy of the delicious food to you. It’s a Bengali dish prepared by stuffing urad daal mix in the pooris made out of maida (all purpose flour). The traditional way to relish it is – with any kind of aloo subjee. I used wheat flour instead of maida and moong daal instead of urad daal purposely as this was going to be Mahi’s 1st Poori experience, so should be easily digestible to her. I had some left over stuffing which I used to roll out parathas for lunch the next day and I personally clubbed it with kheer, strange combination?? but trust me, it really tasted awesome. So, spoil yourselves with Radha Ballabhi in the next festival mood.

Serves: 10-12 Radha Ballabhis depending on the size

Ingredients:

Daal stuffing

      Dehusked Urad daal, soaked for an hour ( I used dehusked moong daal)
      oil for deep frying the pooris.
      An inch ginger pc.
      1 tsp. cumin / jeera
      2 tsp. fennel seeds / saunf
      a pinch of heeng/asafoetida
      1 tsp. red chili powder
      1/2 tsp. garam masala
      1 tsp. coriander seeds 
      2 tbsp. ghee
      Salt per taste

Pooris   

      1 cup maida (I used wheat flour )
      warm water to knead dough
      a spoonful ghee
      Salt per taste

Preparation:

Daal stuffing

      Remove the water from the daal and grind with all the ingredients (except ghee) using minimum water.
      Heat oil in a heavy bottomed wok/pan.
      Add the daal mix and stir continuously.
      The daal mix usually has a tendency to stick to the pan, so stir continuously.
      When you are fatigued with the stirring, and the mix turns into brown color emanating a rich spicy aroma, you are ready with the mix.

Radha Ballabhi

    Knead the dough a little hard than you do for chapattis. This will ensure that daal mix will be intact in the pooris.
    Make small lemon sized balls and using your thumbs and fingers, make small disc.
    Place a spoonful of daal mix in the center of the disc and close the edges of the disc to make a ball again.
    Roll in to flat discs using some oil and a rolling pin.
    Make sure, that the daal mix does not come out or the pooris do not rupture.
    Heat sufficient oil in a deep frying pan or a kadhai.
    Deep fry these radha ballabhis, once one side turns brown, flip it and fry the other side.
    Drain them on paper towels to get rid of excess oil.
    Relish with any aloo subjee preparation and get yourself lost in the rich aroma.

Parting Notes:

I grinded the khada masala and powdered masala in the mix to make it effortless chewing for Mahi. You can grind the daal, ginger and coriander seeds and rest all can go into the roasting part.

I have not mentioned the time here as this is an elaborate preparation. So keep your calendar busy . Roughly, soaking takes 1 hr, preparing the mix takes 30 mins and deep frying the pooris take 20 mins. Phewww…worth devoting to Radha Ballabhis…