• You can prepare the bafla first, and while you are baking it, you can make the dal. As I used, IP for both, I had to wait till the baflas are boiled. But if you are not using IP, you can prepare them all simultaneously.

Preparing the Bafla

• If using Instant Pot, add 6 cups of water into the pot and add ¼ tsp of salt and ¼ tsp of turmeric powder and kept in sauté mode for the water to boil. (It took me approximately 10 minutes)
• Else, bring 6 cups of water with ¼ tsp of turmeric and ¼ tsp of salt to boil in a wide vessel.
• Meanwhile, you can prepare the dough for the bafla.
• In a mixing bowl, combine the wheat flour, Juwar flour, ½ tsp of salt, ½ tsp of cumin seeds, ½ tsp of carom seeds and ghee.
• Now add water little by little and mix the ingredients to form a nice dough. I used about ½ cups + 1 tbsp of water.
• Divide the dough into equal sized balls. I just divided them into four medium-sized balls like below. Roll them in your palms and make it smoother.
• Once the water starts to boil, slowly drop these balls into the water and let it cook until they float to the surface. In IP it took me about 8 minutes.
• Carefully remove those balls and let it dry for at least 10 minutes. Make sure you drain the excess water.
• Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 deg F and also line a baking tray with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
• Place the bafla in the baking tray and bake for about 30 to 35 minutes until they are crisp and firm like below. Make sure you turn once in between. I baked for 32 minutes. While the baking is happening, you can prepare the dal.
• After baking, allow the bafla to cool before assembling.

Preparing the Dal

Pressure Cooker Method

• Add the washed toor dal, salt, turmeric powder and 1.5 cups of water in a pressure pan or cooker and cook for up to 3 to 4 whistles.
• Let the pressure drop and mash the dal nicely.

Instant Pot Method

• Add the washed toor dal, salt, turmeric powder and 1.5 cups of water to the instant pot (make sure you rinse it once after boiling the bafla) and set it manual mode and cook for 12 minutes.
• Let the pressure release naturally and mash the dal nicely.

Tempering the Dal

• In a separate tempering pan, heat the ghee. Once the ghee is hot, reduce the heat and add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, hing and red chili powder. Make sure you cook this over a low flame to prevent the red chili powder from burning.
• Keep mixing this tempering and as the mustard seeds start to crackle, add it to the dal and mix it well.

How I served the Bafla

• There are multiple ways to serve the bafla, but this is how I served. Usually, they don’t add the bafla directly to the dal, but I just added two like how we do for the south Indian lentil sambar / paruppu Kuzhambu.
• Take the bafla in a serving bowl and crush them.
• Drizzle some ghee. I added about one tsp of melted ghee.
• Then add a ladle full of dal on top.
• Garnish it with cilantro and serve hot.