Kaala Jamun ~ Diwali Sweet

With instant gulab jamun mixes available in the market, making them at home is a breeze. And that is not

the case with kaala jamun. This is the third sweet which I made for Diwali.  I followed Viji akka's recipe (Vcuisine-Private blog) with slight modifications. It came out well. I was relieved when I checked if the jamuns were soft after their soaking time. And needless to say, this was my first try. The measurements of ingredients and frying plays an important role in getting soft jamuns.

  

  

You need

• Khova/Mawa - 1 cup (Used store bought)
• Crumbled paneer - 1 cup (used fresh home made paneer)
• Maida/All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
• Baking soda - 1/4 tspn
• Water/Milk if required. (I didnot need any)
• Oil to fry

For filling

 

Cashew/Raisins/sugar candies

 

 

 

For syrup

 

• Sugar - 2 cups
• Water -2 cups
• Milk - 1 tbspn
• Cardamom powder - 1 tspn

Method

 

 

Mix maida and baking soda. If your khoya is hard, grate it. Add crumbled paneer to khoya. Add all purpose flour and knead to a soft dough. If needed add milk. I used fresh paneer and the moisture from the paneer was enough and didn't not add any milk.  Be cautious in case you add milk. Do add in small quantities since the fat from khova and moisture from the paneer will be enough. Else you will end up with a sticky dough and will have to add some more of one of the ingredients and it may not yield soft jamuns.

Rest the dough for half an hour.

  

Sugar Syrup

 

Take sugar and water in a vessel. Bring it to a boil and add milk. Remove the scum that floats on the top. Let the syrup boil till turns sticky to touch. Add cardamom powder and remove from fire. The syrup preparation is similar to what we make for Gulab jamun.

 

 

Frying the jamun

 

Knead the dough and make gooseberry sized balls of the dough. Keep cashew/raisin/sugar candy in the
centre and roll it again with out any cracks.

  

Heat oil till it is moderately hot.  Add 4 balls at a time. After few seconds, lower the heat to the lowest and fry till it is dark brown in color. Note that you don't fry it  for longer time after it gets that  dark color else you

will end up with hard crust jamuns.

 

Drain the jamuns and put it in the sugar syrup. Fry all the remaining jamuns. In case if you feel the oil has become too hot, switch off the stove for few minutes and then start again.

  

Jamuns should soak in the syrup for 7 hours. After its soaked well, remove them from the syrup and transfer to the serving tray. Leave the unused jamuns in the syrup.  Garnish the jamuns with grated coconut or chopped nuts.

 

Enjoy delicious, soft jamuns with nutty centres.

  

Mawa filled Gujiya/Karanji ~ Diwali Sweet

Gujiya/Karanji is in my to-do list for a long time. So Diwali was the perfect time to give it a try.  Preparing the filling isn't any difficult. I wasn't sure if I the outer cover will come out well. It should neither turn soggy or very hard. I told my MIL, if it doesn't turn out well, I will convert this into Bolis. After frying the first batch and I switched off the stove and waited for it cool down. I asked my MIL to do the taste testing and she gave a thumbs up.

Since sugarless khova is easily available here unlike my hometown, I decided not to prepare the khova at home since its very time consuming and  I had other sweers and savories also to be made. I got khova from a near by dairy farm and it was very fresh.

You need

For the outer cover

• All purpose flour /Maida - 1 cup
• Ghee/Butter - 2 tblspn
• Powdered sugar - 2 tspn
• Warm water to prepare the dough
• Oil to deep fry

For Filling

• Mawa/Khova - 1 cup
• Dry Grated coconut - 1/2 cup
• Powdered sugar - 3/4 cup
• Cashews/raisins - 1/2 cup
• Cardamom - 1 tspn
• Semolina - 1 tblspn

 Method

Add ghee and sugar to maida. Mix in well so that the ghee/butter coats the flour well. Slowly add warm water to get a stiff dough. Cover with a damp cloth and leave it for at least an hour.

Take mawa in a kadai. Roast it over low heat for a minute or two. I used store bought dry coconut. If you are using fresh grated coconut, roast it separately till it starts browning.  Add in grated coconut, sugar, cashew, raisins, semolina and cardamom. Mix well and continue cooking till it comes together. It might appear a bit sticky but on cooling it will be fine. While filling, if you find it too sticky, just add a teaspoon of maida and mix.

Take a marble size dough and roll into a thin poori. I rolled into a big chappathi and cut out using a lid of steel dabba. I did not  need any flour for dusting while rolling. Not using any flour also helps in the texture of the fried gujiya, to keep it soft.

Keep a spoon of the filling on one half and fold the other half on top of the filling.

Seal the edges well. Take care that it is sealed well so that it doesn't open up on frying.

To seal, you can use a paste of maida and water. I didn't require any.I pressed it well and I didn't have any problem of opening up. After shaping the gujiyas, if you are not immediately frying them, cover them with a damp cloth. Deep fry 3 or 4 at a time in a moderately hot oil. Drain them when it is golden in color.

The covering was very crisp and soft and indeed has layers too. I wanted to try applying rice flour and ghee paste on multiple pooris and then again roll it out to get layers. But in spite of not doing that, I got perfect Gujiyas. To make it more rich, you can just dip them in sugar syrup. I chose not to do that.

You can practically stuff this with any filling of your choice. I had made the dough using 1 1/2 cups of maida. The filling was not enough. So for the remaining dough I made a filling of chutney dal/pottukadalai powder , sugar, dry coconut and cashews. I just mixed everything and filled it. That also turned out very delicious.

Boondhi Ladoo ~ Diwali Sweet

Hope all of you had a safe and fun filled Diwali. While planning for Diwali Sweets, I try to include the ones which are in my to-do list. And most of the time, the ones which requires time and energy gets into the list, since its festival and I am all out to slog that extra hours in the kitchen. The first sweet to be ticked this time was Boondhi Ladoo and my MIL was game for it since she had made only once and that was with her mother taking the lead. And its first time for me, though I have enough experience in rolling the laddus. (My college mates will agree to this). I checked the measurements and thread consistency for the syrup, with my mom. My mom gave the measurements in kilograms and I scaled it down to cups which is easier for me, since I was making a small quantity.

 

Making ladoo is quite easy though it involves some work. There is nothing much to go wrong in this, if you follow the method properly.

 

 

 

You need

 

 

• Besan/Kadalamavu - 2 cups
• Yellow color - a pinch
• Sugar - 3 cups
• Water - 1/2 cup
• Milk - 1 tspn
• Cashews, raisins, sugar candy(kalkandu) - a handful
• Cardamom/Elaichi powder - 1 tspn
• Ghee - 1 tblspn
• Oil to deep fry

 

Cloves and edible camphor can also be added. I omitted them.

 

Method

Preparing the syrup

 

First prepare the sugar syrup to soak the boondhis.  Heat water and sugar in a deep bottom vessel. When the sugar is fully dissolved, add a teaspoon of milk and let the syrup boil. The impurities in the sugar will float on top. Remove the scum with a ladle. Boil the syrup to one thread consistency. You can check by dropping some syrup to a small bowl of water. If the syrup stays in water and it is rollable, then you can switch of the stove. Take care that you don't make a thick syrup, since rolling laddus will not be easy and it will not hold shape also.

 

Roast Cashews and raisins in ghee. Add it to the syrup. Stir in the cardamom powder also. Keep it aside.
Don't add the sugar candy at this stage.

 

Preparing Boondhis

 

Take the besan in a bowl. Mix in a pinch of yellow color. Add water and make a lump free batter. The batter should be similar to dosa batter. To make boondhi, a special ladle is available in the market. I don't have one. I used the normal slotted ladle which has big holes in it. It worked fine for me. To check the batter consistency, try droping the batter on the ladle over the batter mix. You can see how the batter falls down.  If it doesn't fall in drops, you can add some more besan to adjust the consistency.

 

 

 

 

 

Heat oil in a wide pan. Heat moderately. Hold the ladle above the oil. The height of the ladle determines the shape of the boondhi. So hold it high. While making the boondhi, we tend to lower it near the oil, and you will end up with tiny boondhis. The boondhis get fried very quickly. Drain them before they turn very crisp. Add the drained boondhis to the syrup. Continue making boondhis till you finish the batter. Gently mix the syrup after addition of each batch of boondhis. The hot boondhis will keep the syrup warm. Finally add the sugar candies. We are not adding it at the beginning since it might melt in the hot syrup.

 

 

 

 

 

The final assembly

Take a handful of the soaked boondhis and press it in your fist and roll into laddoos. You should press it well while shaping, so it holds shape and remains firm on cooling also.

 

 

 

I got around 32 ladoos with this measurement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gulab Jamuns ~ For October ICC

Sweet and juicy gulab jamun is the chosen recipe for October ICC. In this age of instant mix available to make them, Srivalli chose to do it from scratch. So we were required to make the Khova at home. The earlier posting date for ICC was last day of the month. After the over dose of Diwali sweets, I wanted to stay away from sweets for the rest of the month ( i.e only around 10 days). For sweet tooth like us, thats a long period. At first I had thoughts of giving this month's challenge a miss. On the other hand, I wanted to make it too. So I casually mentioned to my husband about the month's challenge and my thoughts of not doing it. He suggested making in small quanity and that was the gentle push needed and I went ahead with the preparation. Infact the day after I made, Srivalli mailed the challengers informing the change in posting date ie its going to be the 15th of every month. So that gave extra two weeks for us. But I had already made.

Out of the three recipe, I decided to follow the Yum Blog recipe. I used half litre of milk to prepare the khova and ended up with 3 tablespoons of it. I adjusted the quantity of ingredients accordingly and got 12 jamuns. Needless to say, we both finished it the same day. I am giving the measurements I used. So those of you, who are craving for jamuns and want to try in a small batch, here is the recipe for you.

You need

Khova - 3 tblspn

Maida - 1 tblspn

A tiny pich of soda

Milk - 1 tblspn (you may require )

Oil  - 1 cup to deep fry



For the sugar syrup

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Water - 1/2 cup

Saffron+cardamom syrup - 1 tspn

Rose essence - few drops


Method.

Preparing Khova is easy but time consuming. You have to continue boiling the milk till the solid residue is left behind. If you plan to make khova, make sure you have plenty of time to spare. While making khova for jamuns, stop the cooking when the khova is moist and not too dry.

Mix khova , maida and soda. Don't knead it too much. If the mix is dry, add few drops of milk and bring the dough together. Divide the dough into12 portions and roll them into balls. Don't press hard while rolling. Else the inner portion will not get cooked properly and later doesn't soak in the syrup well.

Heat oil in a kadai. Don't heat it to smoking point. When the oil is moderately hot, carefully drop the balls into the oil and fry the jamuns till golden brown in medium heat.

Meanwhile prepare the syrup by heating sugar and water. The syrup should be slightly sticky to touch. If you have saffron add it along with powdered cardamom and few drops of rose essence. I have the saffron cardamom syrup with me. So I used that. Adding saffron is purely optional.

Drop the fried jamuns in the warm syrup. You can add the drained jamuns directly to the syrup. After one hour, the jamuns must have soaked in the syrup and is ready to serve. You can chill and serve or serve warm with a side of vanilla ice cream.

Ribbon Pakoda & Mathri ~ Savories for Diwali

Diwali is one festival when we can have our choice of  savories and sweets to be made. Unlike most of the festivals which has a predefined menu  like Murukku, Seedai for Krishnajayanthi, Kali for Thiruvathirai, Appam,Pori for Karthigai etc. When it comes to Diwali recipes, DIET comes last for me. The amount of oil, sugar and ghee doesn't affect the choice of sweets or savories. Celebration is the key word and Diwali comes only once in a year. So lets get onto the savories I made for this Diwali. Come what may, Ribbon Pakoda is always there. I made no exception to that rule this year too. There is no fixed recipe for pakoda. I feel each family has a recipe of their own, passed down from generations. Here is mine.

Ingredients

Rice flour - 3 cups

Gram flour/Besan - 1 cup

Butter - 3 tblspn

Salt - 1/2 tspn

Chilli powder - 1 tspn heaped

Hing

Water to make the dough

Oil to deep fry


Method

Measure rice flour and besan in a vessel. Add butter and chilli powder. Mix well so that the flour is well coated with butter. Mix in the salt and hing dissolved in water. Add enough water to make a pliable dough. Heat oil in a kadai. Using the pakoda achu/plate, press it into hot oil. Gently flip with a perforated ladle and remove when it is golden brown. Drain and leave it to come to room temperature. Store in air tight container.

My MIL adds a 1/4 cup of roasted and powder tuvar dal. It sure adds to the flavor. But I was lazy to do that. So I skipped it. Nevertheless, mine turned out to be very crispy and melt-in-the-mouth kind.

Note: If store bought rice flour is used, you can measure rice flour :besan in the ratio 2:1 to get crispier pakodas.

Mathri/Mathi

The other savory is from the Land of Rajasthan - Mathri/Mathi. The is the first time I am trying at home though I have tasted it. On goggling, I went through several recipes and found that more than the measurement of ingredients, it’s the way of making them that is important to get flaky, crisp biscuits. And I followed the instructions at Tongue Ticklers. Harini has given all the little points to be taken care of. Though she has baked it, I deep fried them. My ingredient list slightly varies from hers, but I followed her method to prepare the dough. It came out excellent. Do drop into her space to have a look at the perfectly baked mathris. I am sure going to bake them soon.

Ingredients

Wheat flour/Atta - 2 cups

All purpose flour/Maida - 1 cup

Salt - 1 tspn

Chilli powder -1/2 tspn

Pepper powder - 1/2 tspn

Kasuri methi - 2 tblspn

Ajwain/Omam- 1tspn

Turmeric - a pinch

Hot oil - 3/4 cup

Warm water - 1 cup



Oil to deep fry


Method

Take wheat flour, maida, salt, chilli powder ,pepper powder, ajwain and turmeric in a bowl. Mix the ingredients well. Make a well in the centre. Pour the hot oil. rub the oil into the ingredients using a spatula. The more the oil and less water used in making the dough, gives better biscuits. I felt the amount of oil used was right enough. So used water to prepare the dough. Add kasuri methi to the dough. Don't knead the dough. Just bring together as you do for cookies.

Take marble sized dough and press it down between your palms. Else you can roll it using the rolling pin. I rolled into a big thick chappathi. Cut into small circles with a bottle cap. Make marks on top with a fork or knife so that it doesn't puff up while fried. Deep fry 4 or 5 mathris in a batch till it is golden brown. When cool it is very crisp and flaky. Since I have added chilli and pepper powders, it was spicy too.

My diwali sweets will follow in the next post.

Wishing you all a very happy and safe Diwali/Deepavali.