Dal ‘Fudge’

What happens when you fudge up the traditional East Indian dal sweet by using raw sugar and stirring the resulting gooby-oozy for a lesser time than you would for the confection?

(har har har) DAL FUDGE! \m/

Oh yeah. There is something to be said for ingredients that undergo substitution – namely this – they turn out into something deliciously surprising.

The dal sweet that we East Indians (and the other Christian communities in Maharashtra) make for Christmas is another sweet that I suspect originated from Maharashtrian kitchens. The sweet taste is very reminiscent of that wonderful childhood treat – Puran Poli (literally, wheat hand bread stuffed with a sweet mass).

Dal sweet made of chana dal (split chickpeas) and depending on the amount of white sugar used, ranges from pale white to yellow in colour. The result has the consistency and appearance of a burfi and for an Indian sweetmeat, is not very rich at all! Dal sweet is probably one of the few Christmas sweets we make that do not give the feeling that you are in the line for immediate diabetes (oh how I love to exaggerate!).

While I have never witnessed the making of this particular sweet – we never made it in our home – Fritter Man had watched his mother make it. Armed with this knowledge, a recipe from my paternal aunt and my mum’s vague familiarity with the sweet, we set about to cook it.

Of primary concern to us was the stupendous amount of sugar the sweet requires. Since we tend to use raw sugar in moderate quantities, we decided to try it out our way and see how it worked out.

What you need:

Crushed chana dal – 300 gms (the dal should be neither powder nor big chunks, best to crush them with the pulse motion in the mixing mill)

Raw sugar – 2 cups

Almonds – 250 gms (grind these with their skins on)

Rose water – less than 1 wine glass / 8 tbsps

Ghee / clarified butter – 2 tbsps

Water – 1 + 1/3rd cup

Cardamom seeds – seeds from 10 pods, crushed very fine

Shredded/desiccated coconut – 2 tbsps

What you need to do:

Lightly grease two steel plates or a sturdy circular mold with ghee/oil/butter and keep aside. Use a clean wooden spoon while cooking this sweet.

In a thick vessel, add a cup of water and sugar and boil it on a medium flame. Lubricate your palms with oil or petroleum jelly to keep them from blistering (the stirring process can be tough on them).

While the water’s boiling, add the ghee to a smaller vessel and let it heat for a few minutes. Add around 60 gms of the ground dal to the ghee and stir around for about a minute or two, after which you need to take it off the flame.

Once the water starts to boil, reduce the flame to low and slowly add the rest of the ground dal (do not wash it and do not keep it for soaking) and start stirring. After a few seconds, add the ghee coated dal (along with any residual ghee in the vessel) to this mixture and continue stirring.

You will see a frothy film of whitish-yellow liquid that starts to coat the surface of this mixture. This is just the dal water that is being secreted. There’s no need to discard it as it will be assimilated within the mixture in time.

After a couple of minutes, add the ground almonds and mix in well. Add the rose-water and the ground cardamom seeds last and after 15 minutes warm the remaining 1/3rd cup of water and add it.

Keep stirring this mixture on a low flame and periodically use your spoon to swipe the mixture from the sides of the vessel. Do not stop as the dal mixture would get burnt if not constantly stirred. The ideal stirring time is an hour, by the end of which you would be left with a viscous mass that’s dark in colour and holds cooked dal that still feels slightly crunchy.

Nearly cooked fudge

Keep stirring till the liquid has significantly reduced and is barely coating the surface of the mixture. The mixture should not be too compact. At this point, the dal and liquid have evenly absorbed each other and the fudge-like mass is ready to be poured into the greased plates/molds.

After pouring, you should be left with a smooth, glassy layer of fudge in the plates. Leave them to cool at room temperature and once the bottoms of the plate are cool to touch, refrigerate them overnight.

The next morning, take it out and use a butter knife to slice away portions of the fudge to roll into marble-sized balls. Roll these in the shredded/desiccated coconut and let a light layer coat them.

Your dal fudge is ready to serve. The proportions used here yield at least 40 plus marble-sized balls and should last for a week or more (if you don’t have sweet stealers in your house i.e.) if you keep them refrigerated.