Unduwel - Panni Walalu

Growing up, we had a friend called Sachi. She would visit us in the holidays and pester us to entertain her...apparently it was our duty. She would arrive very early in the morning and wake us up, she would then ask us to make her holdiays fun...we were none too impressed. This story has a happy ending, she grew out of most of her annoyingness and became a very dear friend. She always requested my mum make these "swirly" things, as she called them. What they really were were Panni Walalu or as we called them Unduwel.

These are delicious crispy fried swirls of dough dunked in hot kithul treacle. Yumm. My mum is famous for making these and makes them for special family events and for Sinhalese New Year.
The original recipe came from a family friend and in typical mum fashion she's made it her own.

I'm going to go against my better instincts and not write this as a procedure text type. Just to live on the edge...you know how I roll.

First we soaked a cup of urid dhal, the white version with the black skin removed. We left it to soak over night.

In the morning placed the drained dhal into a blender and added just enough water to make it into a smooth paste. We made sure to add the water a little at a time, the object being to make the mixture as thick as possible.

When it was blended we added 1 cup of fine rice flour. We mixed the two together and left it to rise in a warm spot for approximately 6 hours.

After six hours we headed a frying pan with about 2 inches of oil. In a seperate pan we warmed up about 100 grams of dark palm sugar, half a cup or kithul treacle and a bit of sugar. Once the sugars have melted turn the heat off. For the purposes of absorption this mixture must be hot but never boiling. We tend to turn the stove on for a couple of minutes every 10 minutes of so as we are making these treats.

We spooned the dhal mixture into a square piece of cloth with a small hole sewn in. This is used to squeeze loops into the hot oil.

Which is what you do next. You squeeze loops of the dough into the hot oil. When it is brown and crispy you pick it up and dump it into the hot treacle mixture.

You can see the hot treacle seeping in. Once it has been sitting there for a couple of minutes move it out of the treacle and onto a plate.
Keeps for a few days but best eaten hot, fresh and crispy.