Roshopuli
Traditional sweet potato dumplings stuffed with coconut and made only during winters because of the use of nolen gur or date palm syrup. This dessert is first fried and then dunked in the syrup and can be had warm or chilled. Recipe Author: Madhushree
Ingredients
For the Sweet potato Dumpling
- 1 kg sweet potato
- 1/2 Cup Flour
- 1/2 Cup Rice flour
- 2 tbsp Caster sugar
- pinch of salt
- vegetable oil for deep frying
For the Filling
- 1 1/2 cup freshly grated coconut
- 1/2 cup grated gur or jaggery I have used patali gur which you get in winters in Bengal. Instead of gur , one can use sugar as well.
For the Syrup
- 5 cups water
- 1 cup Sugar
- 1 cup nolen gur date palm syrup
Instructions
- First thing you need to do is make the syrup. You can always make it a day in advance. In a heavy bottomed pan, mix all the three ingredients for the syrup and keep it on medium low heat. Keep stirring from time to time. Bring it to boil and then again let it remain on heat till it reaches a syrupy yet pouring consistency. Take it off the heat and let it cool down.
- The next step is to make the filling. This step also could be done well in advance. To make a stuffing, in a wok mix the grated coconut with grated jaggery and keep it on low flame. Keep stirring so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom. Let the jaggery or gur melt and mix with the coconut.
- The filling has to become a bit sticky and that’s when you turn off the heat and let it cool down completely. This process takes about 15- 20 minutes.
- For the dumpling, the first thing you need to do is to boil the sweet potatoes. Once they are cool, peel the skins off and mash them well.
- Add the flour and some rice flour and make dough out of this. It will be a soft dough and a bit sticky too. You may need to adjust the quantity of flour depending on the stickiness. It has to be hard enough to be able to make small round balls. But then don’t add too much flour that it will taste doughy. The predominant taste has to be of the sweet potatoes.
- Quickly make small balls of dough. Take one ball at a time and press gently on the palm of your hand. Flatten it out and spoon in a tea spoon of the filling in each ball.
- Gently cover the filling with both ends of the dough and press with your finger tips to seal the edges. Then using both your palm, shape it into cylinders with conical edges.
- Now the difficult part is deep frying these dumplings. You have to make sure that the oil is not extremely hot or the dumpling will fall apart. Fry them on medium low heat and turn them gently so that the colour is uniform on all sides.
- Once you have a dark golden colour of the dumplings, take them out of the hot oil and drop them in the bowl of syrup instantly.
- Let it rest in the syrup for some time. The dumpling will soak in a lot of syrup and will be soft, moist and juicy in the inside. It is nothing short of heavenly the way it tastes, especially in the date palm syrup.
- You can serve it hot or cold as per your taste and liking.
Notes
- The stuffing and the syrup can be made in advance and ketp in the refrigerator. However, while making the dumplings, bring the stuffing to room temperature for easier handling. Also warm the syrup a bit.
- In case you are making it for the first time, the ideal way to do it would be to test one dumpling before moulding them all. Id the dumpling breaks or falls apart while frying, then you might need to add more flour to bind it strongly.
- In case you stay in a place where khejurer gur is not available, please feel free to replace date palm syrup with simple sugar and add a pinch of cardamom powder for flavour in the stuffing as well as the syrup.