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Haalu Holige is a traditional Karnataka sweet dish. The crispy fried pooris are dunked and soaked in a mildly sweetened milk and can be served hot or chilled. It is also called Poori Basundi or Paal Poli.
The melt-in-mouth pooris soaked in rich saffron and cardamom flavored milk, served with slivered almonds, make a delectable dessert. This makes great sweet dish for any traditional occasions, festivals or a fancy get-together party as it can be made ahead and served chilled, easy to serve fancy and definitely yummy in the tummy.
Serves: 6 to 8
Ingredients:
For Pooris:
Clarified Butter / Ghee – 2 tablespoons
All Purpose Flour / Maida – 1 cup + 2 tablespoons
Super Fine Semolina / Chirtoti Rava – 1/2 cup
Salt – 1/8 teaspoon
Ghee/Oil for rolling and deep frying pooris
For Milk syrup:
Whole Milk – 1.25 litre
Sugar – 1 3/4 cups
Cardamom Powder – 3/4 teaspoon
Saffron Strands – 7 to 8
Slivered Almonds – 3 tablespoons
Pistachios, Cashew nuts, chopped – 3 tablespoons
Method:
- Take 2 tablespoons ghee and 2 tablespoons all purpose flour in a mixing bowl. Knead it thoroughly using the heel of your palm for 5-10 minutes until the dough becomes soft like butter.
- Now add remaining all purpose flour, semolina and salt. Pour about 1/2 cup of water and knead it into a soft dough. If the dough is hard, keep adding more water, 1 teaspoon at a time, until you get a soft and firm dough. The quantity of water will vary depending on the quality of the all purpose flour and semolina. Keep the dough covered for 1 hour.
- Meanwhile, boil milk in a deep pan.
- Add sugar and continue boiling until the milk reduces to 2/3rd the original quantity. Keep stirring the milk frequently and stick any cream that forms to the sides of the pan.
- Now add saffron strands, slivered almonds and chopped pistachios and cashew nuts.
- Scrape the cream from the sides of the pan, add it to the boiling milk. Continue boiling it for another 3-4 more minutes and turn off the heat.
- Now knead the prepared dough and make small dough balls.
- In a wok, heat ghee/oil for deep frying.
- In a small bowl, take 2-3 teaspoons of ghee/oil. Dip a dough ball slightly in ghee/oil and roll it into thin disc. You can dust the dough ball with flour instead. Using a fork, poke around the rolled out disc.
- Deep fry the disc in hot ghee/oil. The fried poori must be slightly golden brown and crispy.
Place the fried pooris on a kitchen tissue.
- Repeat steps 9-10 for all the remaining dough balls.
- Drop the fried pooris, one by one, in the prepared milk syrup, gently pressing each poori as you drop it in the milk syrup. Let the pooris soak for 15-20 minutes atleast.
- Scoop out a poori and some milk syrup into a serving bowl and serve hot. You can serve them chilled too.
- You can refrigerate the pooris soaked in milk in an air tight container for 2-3 days.
