Tag: indian dessert

Sajjige ladoo/ Rava laddu:

October 24, 2022

Happy Deepavali wishes to dear readers.

Sajjige is semolina or Rava in our mangaluru, coastal region of Karnataka. Rava ladoo has never made an appearance in my blog. Hence, I made the ladoo for this Diwali and here I am, sharing a mouth-watering super soft laddu of our region. To make this ladoo, we need minimal ingredients and don’t need any milk or coconut, and it has a good shelf life when stored in an airtight container.

This laddu recipe is an age-old recipe I learned from my friend’s mom.

Method:

Medium Rava – 4 cups (also known as Uppittu rava/Bombay rava)

Ghee – 3 to 4 tablespoons

Cloves -4 (crushed)

Saffron strands – 8- 10

Cardamom – 1tsp

Cashew bits – 3 to 5 tablespoons (fried)

Raisins – 3 tablespoons (use as it is)

Sugar – 3 ½ cups

Water – 1 ¾ cup (just enough to cover the sugar)

Method:

-Take little ghee and fry cashew bits and keep it aside.

-Put Rava, saffron, and crushed cloves, and roast everything until it is grainy and white by adding ghee.

-In a saucepan or thick-bottomed pan, make a sugar syrup of half-thread consistency. Now, this is very important to get soft, melt-in-a-mouth laddu.

(To make sugar syrup, heat sugar and water until it boils and becomes shiny. To test the half-thread consistency, touch the sugar syrup between your forefinger and thumb, and when you open those fingers away, the sugar thread should break).

-Now, mix roasted rava, cardamom powder, roasted cashew, and raisins and mix everything properly. Mass would look watery, no worries. Close the lid and keep it aside for some time ( it takes 1 hour or more) until the mixture dries up.

-start binding the roundels and keep them aside to cool and dry properly. Store it in an airtight container and enjoy.

Almond Cashew Mawa Burfi:

August 9, 2020

Who does not love Almond or Kaju Katli? Here I have combined the much loved two raw materials,  with milk solid/ khoya, to give a melt in a mouth Indian dessert, In the form of burfi.

Almond cashew mawa Barfi is a super delicious, easy to make, melt in mouth Indian sweet or fudge recipe. A perfect sweet to make on any special occasion! Or festive time.

Ingredients:

Almond – ¾ cup

Cashew –  1/3 cup

Khoya /mawa – ½ cup / 100 grams ( unsweetened)

Sugar – 1 ½ cup

Water – ½ cup

Ghee – ¼ cup

Saffron – 10 – 12 strands

Method:

-Heat a cup of water, soak almond and cashew. Close the lid and keep it for 2 hours.

-After two hours, peel the almonds, drain the water, spread these on kitchen towel to remove extra moisture.

-Grind them in a small mixer jar, by using pulse option by giving intervals for mixing in between to get a smooth paste. Grease one steel plate and keep it ready as well.

-Now, take one thick kadai, pour sugar, water, and boil until it reaches one thread consistency. It takes hardly 5 minutes, after initial boil.

-Add in Almond, cashew paste, after it melts and forms a homogeneous mix, add in grated Mawa.

-Stir everything in a low fire, without leaving hand. While stirring, add a tsp of ghee at regular interval and add saffron strands as well.

-When mixture leaves the sides, as well as thickens, check for the doneness. Take out little mixture, hold a small quantity, in between your thumb and forefinger, try to make a ball. Formed ball should shine as well as should not stick to your finger.

-If it passes the test, switch off the gas, and keep stirring for another 5 to 7 minutes, if any ghee is remaining, pour in between stirring.

 -Take the greased plate, pour the mixture, and spread evenly and leave it for 10 minutes. Mark the line and keep it aside for cooling. After cooling, take out pieces, store it in an airtight box.

 

 

 

Broken wheat Huggi:

December 17, 2018

Huggi is a very popular, semi solid dessert of North Karnataka and each house has its own method. It is a sort of homely recipe and you would not find in any restaurant. Broken wheat is known as Godhi nucchu in Kannada language. I learnt Some of my favourite North Karnataka recipes from my previous neighbour aunty, who hails from Solapur near Gulbarga. I used to enjoy whatever she used to offer, starting from simple triangle chapati, obbattu, obbattu saru, chapparadavarekai palya, chavlikai palya and khara byale saru to Godhi nucchina Huggi, which she used to offer to God, every Friday evening and used to offer as a prasadam to us.

Aunty used to use hardly 3 ingredients and it used to taste divine. It is no coconut dessert and you can feel the texture of wheat as well as flavour. Preparation is very quick and simple and needs hardly any pre-preparation.

Recipe goes like this-

Ingredients:

Broken wheat – 1 cup

Jaggery – ¾ cup

Salt – ¼ tsp

Ghee – ¼ cup

Cardamom powder – 1 tsp

Cashew pieces – Roasted (Optional)

Method:

-Wash broken wheat twice. Cook with 3 cups of water and a pinch of salt for 2 to 3 whistles.

-Mean time, heat jaggery by adding ½ cup of water. Strain the liquid and remove the impurities.

-Add strained jaggery syrup to cooked wheat and cook further at a very low temperature.

-When raw smell of jaggery vanishes, add ghee and cook further by mixing in between.

-Lastly when mixture becomes like a mass, add cardamom powder, garnish with roasted cashew and serve.

Gujiya / Dry fruits Karanji/ Karjikai:

November 5, 2018

Deepavali aka Diwali is an important festival of India and is spread between three days. Indian festivals are incomplete without sweets and savouries. In India, each festival has its own significance in celebration as well as its menu. Gujiya is one of them and has a very important role during Diwali.

Gujiya is a deep-fried flour-based delicacy, with different fillings in different regions. It is known by a different name in each region. Outer cover will be the same and inner stuffing varies from Rava – sugar, coconut – jaggery, coconut – sugar, mawa (milk solids) with dry fruits or with only dry fruits are traditionally seen. Nowadays you get to see so many variations from chocolate to cheese filling as well as baked version.

In North India, after frying the Gujiya, they usually dip it in a sugar syrup and outer cover would be wet and shiny. In south India, we normally deep fry and serve as it is and it’s known as Karanji / Karjikai.

I used to follow Chef Sanjeev Kapoor and learnt so many recipes from him and this is one such recipe. Over the years, I tweaked it a little and adjusted it according to our taste and it has one added advantage of longer shelf life, due to the usage of milkmaid instead of khoya.

Ingredients:

For the outer cover / shell:

All-purpose flour – 2 ½ cups

Salt – ¼ tsp

Ghee – 6 table spoons

Water – As needed (normal water)

Oil – for Deep frying

For the stuffing /filling:

Desiccated coconut – 200 grams

Semolina – 2 table spoons

Almonds – ¼ cup

Cashew – ¼ cup

Raisin – ¼ cup

Cardamom – 1 tsp

Condensed milk – 1 tin (400 grams)

Method:

For the outer cover-

-In a bowl, add flour and pour ghee. Rub the ghee and flour by using your hand for 5 to 10 minutes. 

-After a while, flour would resemble like a semi wet crumb.

-Now add required amount of water to make a firm dough.

-Cover the dough with wet cloth and keep aside for half an hour.

Note: Dough approximately holds ½ cup of water.

In the meantime, prepare the stuffing –

-Roast semolina in a low flame, switch off the gas. Mix in all the other ingredients from almond to condensed milk.

-Keep it until mixture is non-sticky while touching. 

-Now comes the actual procedure. You can use three methods.

  1. Use Gujiya mould.

     2.Take a dough, roll into big thin circle, use cookie cutter to make small, uniform circle.

  1. Take little dough, make small poori like discs.

Here I have followed the third method.

This quantity has yielded 28 Gujiya.

-Divide the dough, make roundels, fill the stuffing, close into half.

-Dip your hand in water, now, start folding the edges from one corner and go on folding like a half diamond shape at regular intervals until you reach the other end.

-Keep this ready, stuffed, yet to fry Gujiya to air dry.

-Repeat the procedure and finish off the filling work.

-Heat the oil for deep frying in low temperature.

-When oil is hot, drop one by one Gujiya, fry in a low flame to get good results.

-When everything is fried and cooled, store it in an air tight container.

NOTE:

To get a perfect Gujiya – these points are very important. 

1- Rubbing the ghee + flour. 

2-Frying in a low fire 

 

 

 

Paramanna/ Pindi payasam:

January 13, 2018

Pindi payasam is nothing but our traditional rice kheer without adding any milk or coconut milk, which is usually offered to god as a Naivedyam and served as a prasadam at any pooja. It is considered as a favourite of goddess Devi. When I look back and think, Pandan leaves were widely used in our region(Mangalore) as well. One can make this payasam even without adding Pandan leaves.

pic main

Pandan leaves are known as gandhasaale ele in our Mangalore region.
Gandhasaale rice is a traditional, flavoured and scented rice variety of Karnataka and Kerala, cultivated in small pockets. Gandhasaale rice is the best rice for meals, Pulav, payasam and other eatables. The Gandhasaale rice is known especially for its rich aroma. It is also called Kerala’s basmati.
In our native, to get aroma of “gandhasaale” in ordinary rice, my grand mom used to put these leaves in, while cooking the rice. Pandan (Scientific Name: Pandanus, also known as screw pine or palm pine) is a herbaceous tropical plant that grows in Southeast-Asia. In Chinese, it is known as ‘fragrant plant’ because of its unique, sweet aroma. The cultivated plant features upright bright green leaves, and it’s the leaves that are used for cooking up many Thai and Southeast-Asian dishes. Pandan is also made into a paste that is used in cakes and desserts, much the way we use vanilla flavouring in the Western cuisine. However, in addition to flavour, Pandan paste also instil foods with a bright green colour. Some Thai and Malayan desserts which I have tasted are Pandan baked cake, Pandan jelly and Pandan sticky rice in Malaysia. Personally, I dint like it much because of its overpowering fragrance and felt that, like my ajji (grand mom), one should use one or 2 leaves to get that perfect blend.

DSC05949_Fotor

Ingredients:

White rice – 1 cup (I have used small grain rice)

Grated jaggery – 1 cup

Ghee – 2to 3 table spoons

Coconut – 2 table spoons (grated)

Cardamom powder – 1 tea spoon

Pandan leaves – 2

Cashew bits – as needed

Method:

-Wash rice, Pandan leaves. Soak rice for 10 minutes.

-Boil 2 to 3 cups of water, add rice, Pandan leaves and cook until it is done.

Ribbet collage 1

-After cooking, remove Pandan leaves.

-In the meantime, take one cup of water, boil, add jaggery and melt.

-Sieve this solution and remove all the impurities.

-Add this solution to cooked rice and boil.

-When the mixture becomes thick, add ghee and mix nicely.

Ribbet collage 2

-Lastly add coconut, cardamom powder and give a stir for 2 to 3 minutes or until it becomes like a creamy mass.

-Roast cashew bits in a little ghee and garnish.

-If you want to offer this to god, do that and then serve. Other wise serve hot and enjoy this delicacy.