In a large bowl, sieve the flours and salt twice over. Add the fine sooji and mix well.

Add turmeric and little water to make a smooth dough. Add all the oil mentioned in the recipe above, and knead it well into the dough.

Keep covered for 1- 1.5 hours.At the end of the resting / Soaking time, the dough should be stretchy without breaking, this is the test for the covering.

Soak Dals  for 1/2 hour.

Bring 6-7 cups of water to a rolling boil, add the soaked and drained Channa Dal, turmeric and cook till the dal is cooked, and not mushy.

If you were to press the dal between the thumb and the forefinger, it should be slightly soft, but still hold shape in the centre. This takes approx 25 mins.
Drain and retain the water (yummy Obbattu saaru - or Obbattu Rasam is made out of the extract) - recipe soon :-)

Cool the dals slightly & grind the dal along with the coconut to a smooth paste without adding ANY water.

In a non stick pan, melt the grated jaggery add the coconut - dal paste.

Cook till the masscomes to a thickish consistency, and pulls away from the pan on slow cooking (and stirring continusouly)

Keep stirring till you are able to pat a little pancake on your palms with a small portion.

At this stage, the filling would leave the sides and turn to a thickish slightly dry mass rolling all over the pan without sticking.

Add powdered elaichi and grated nutmeg to it and mix well. Cool and cover with a damp kitchen towel.

Knead the outer covering well for 5 mins. Make equal portions of the stuffing.

Grease a butter paper or banana leaf with generous oil. Pinch a small amount of the covering, and with the fingers, spread to a small disc, place the filling in the centre, and as with a modak, fold the dough over to cover the filling.

Pinch out excess dough.

Very gently with your fingers or lightly rolling with the rolling pin, flatten it out to a thickish disc, approx 8 inch in diamater. Take care that the filling does not come out.

Meanwhile heat a tava on medium heat, flip the flattened out Obbattu on to the hot tava. Fry on low both sides without oil till dark brown spots appear on both sides (this is to be done on low-medium heat) else will harden.

There is no need to add oil for frying as the flattening out / rolling out is done on a generously greased surface

Repeat for the remaining dough.

Serve hot with a dollop of ghee.

Store between banana leaves in an airtight container - this keeps for upto a week under refrigeration.

To reheat, just warm it on a tava for a min or microwave on a flat plate for 30 secs.