Bellam Garelu

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole urad dal 
• salt pinch
• oil for deep frying
• 1 cup grated jaggery
• 1 1/2 cups water

Method:

• Soak whole black gram dal in water for 2 hours.
• Strain the water, and grind the dal to a paste sprinkling little water and salt. Use small portions of dal to grind batch wise as its easier to grind into a soft paste. Beat till fluffy.
• Heat water, add the jaggery and let it melt and form a syrup which is sticky to touch. While the jaggery is forming a syrup, deep fry the vadas.
• Take a deep frying vessel, add enough oil and heat.
• Wet your hands with water, take a lemon-sized ball of batter and flatten it into a vada on a greased sheet or banana leaf. Make a hole in the centre of the vada so that it cooks evenly all over.
• Slowly drop the vada into the hot oil carefully and fry it on both sides on medium heat to a golden brown color. Deep fry 4-5 vadas per batch depending on the size of the vessel.
• Immediately dip these fried vadas into the jaggery syrup. Let them sit in this syrup till the next batch of vadas are deep-fried. 
• Remove them onto a serving plate and drop the next batch of vadas into the syrup.
• Drizzle some left over syrup over vadas before serving and serve hot while the crust is still crisp.