Diwali Faral - Karanji / Gujiya

Every year as Diwali comes near I start missing the days back home when mom would make lots of faral at home and I could replace all my meals with faral ! This year I thought of taking some help from mom and giving these delicacies a shot. Karanji also known as gujiya by some was the first thing I made.

Ingredients

1 cup maida (all purpose flour)

1/4 cup whole wheat flour (atta)

4 tablespoon ghee

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cardamom powder

1/2 cup dessicated coconut

1/4 cup raisins

Water

Salt

Procedure

1. Place maida in a mixing bowl suitable for making dough. Add a couple pinches salt to it to give the outer covering a nice savory taste.

2. Heat 2 tablespoons of ghee in a pan. When the ghee is about to let out some smoke quickly pour it into the maida. Mix using a whisk since the ghee is hot.

3. After mixing it well now start adding warm water little by little to make the maida dough.

4. The dough should be soft and malleable.

5. Let the dough rest for an hour.

6. For the stuffing (saaran) put the sugar in your mixer and make into a powder. I dont usually buy powdered sugar, I prefer doing it myself.

7. Tranfer the powdered sugar into another bowl.

8. Add 1/2 cup dessicated coconut to the powdered sugar and mix it. You can add the raisins at this stage.

9. Heat 2 tablespoons ghee in a pan. Once it becomes hot then add your wheat flour to it and start roasting it. Once the flour starts giving out an aroma turn off the heat.

10. Add the wheat flour to the sugar mixture and mix again.

At this point your filling (saaran) is ready.

11. Roll out the dough into equal sized balls.

12. This dough does not usually stick to the chakla (roti board) so you dont need to put any flour on the board.

13. Roll small pooris from the dough balls. Make the poori thin but not too thin because it has to withstand the weight of the filling.

14. Once you have rolled out the poori then take one spoonful of the filling and place it in one half of the poori. If you think there is space for more filling then add a little more.

15. Line the edges of half of the poori containing the filling with little bit of water. Flip over the other side of the poori in which you didnt place any filling to make it coincide with the watered edges. Now seal the edges by pressing together.

16. You may remove the excess dough from the sides using a karanji cutter and then use a fork to seal the edges better. Or you may fold the edges to further prevent any possible breakage in the karanji,

17. Heat some oil (or ghee if you prefer) for frying the karanji

18. Once the oil becomes hot, slowly lower your karanjis into it and fry them till they get a light color on them and their outer covering looks cooked.

19. Slowly take them out of the oil and place them on a paper towel lined plate.

Karanjis done !

Cabbage Kofta Curry

It was one of the weekly potluck get-togethers with friends and I was trying to think of something fun to make and something that would not warrant a trip to the grocery store. The only vegetable I had at home was half a head of cabbage. Then I thought why not make cabbage koftas !
Here comes your recipe ..

Ingredients
Half a head of cabbage
Approximately half cup besan (chickpea flour)
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon ginger garlic paste
3 finely chopped chillies
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon dhaniya powder
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 onion finely diced
2 tablespoons yogurt (low fat is fine)
1 teaspoon oil for gravy
Oil for frying koftas

Procedure
1. If possible grate your cabbage head to get very fine shreds else do julienne (very thin) cuts. And then chop it to make the cabbage pieces very small.

2. Rub some salt into the cabbage and let it sit for a minute or two. Then squeeze the cabbage to rinse out the water from it.

3. Place the cabbage in a mixing bowl.

4. To that add the finely chopped chillies, coriander powder, ginger-garlic paste and 1 teaspoon garam masala.

5. Mix it well. Then add the besan. Your cabbage will still have some water in it so keep mixing without adding any excess water.

6. If you come to the point where you have mixed it and the mixture is still a bit dry then add water 1 tablespoon at a time. We want the dough at a consistency where we can easily roll out kofta balls.

7. Now leave the dough untouched for about 30 minutes.

8. After 30 minutes roll the dough into koftas

9. Heat some oil for frying. Dont make the oil smoking hot. We want the koftas to cook evenly from inside so medium heat is good.

10. First drop one kofta into the oil to see how it fares. If it turns brown immediately that means the oil is too hot. In such a situation the outside of your kofta will get cooked very fast and the inside will still be moist. We dont want that. So reduce the heat and let the oil cool down a bit.

11. Now start adding the rest of the koftas slowly. Dont try to move them around right after you drop them in the oil. Let them stay there for about 2 minutes and then move them around a bit so all sides get cooked evenly. Look for a golden brown color. This may take about 4-5 minutes.
(Tip : One trick to make sure your koftas dont fall apart in the oil : Before you put them in the oil roll them in a little bit of dry besan. Make sure it is not so much besan that they look all powdery.)

12. Once the koftas have been fried, place them on a paper towel in plate to drain out the excess oil.

13. For the gravy heat 1 teaspoon of oil in a pot

14. Add the finely chopped onions to it

15. Roast the onions till they are golden brown

16. Then add 1 teaspoon garam masala, 1 teaspoon red chilli powder and mix it well

17. Now add 2 tablespoons of yogurt to this mix and let it cook for about a minute. Once the mixture starts leaving out oil you know the yogurt has done its job.

18. Add about 1/2 cup of water to the masala above and let it come to a boil and start thickening.

19. Add salt as per taste.

20. Now drop the koftas into the gravy and let them sit there for about 4-5 minutes.

Turn off the heat , grab yourself a plate and enjoy the fruit of your hard work !! :)

Coriander paratha / Cilantro paratha / Kothimbir paratha

Coriander paratha is something you can make very easily and with very little hassle. The ingredients needed are usually always available in any Indian household so no prior prep is needed as well.

Let us start with the ingredients :

1 cup whole wheat flour

Salt to taste

1 tablespoon oil

1 bunch cilantro (coriander)

1 teaspoon red chilly powder

1/4 teaspoon haldi powder

1 teaspoon dhaniya (coriander) powder

1 teaspoon jeera

Ghee

Water

Procedure

1. In a bowl suitable for making dough add the whole wheat flour, salt, red chilli powder, haldi powder, dhaniya powder and jeera

2. Mix all these dry ingredients well and add 1 tablespoon oil to it

3. Rinse off the coriander and dry it with a paper towel to remove the excess water

4. Finely chop the coriander

5. Now add this finely chopped coriander to the flour mixture above.

6. Slowly start adding water as you knead the dough. Cilantro is going to release some water when you let the dough rest, so do not add too much water to the dough. As a measure add less water than the amount you would add for making rotis from 1 cup of flour.

7. Let the dough rest for about 45 minutes or so.

8. Roll out the parathas like you would roll a roti.

9. Brush off the excess flour from the parathas.

10. Place it on a hot griddle. When you see bubbles on one side of the paratha, apply some ghee to the bubbly side and then turn it over. Do the same on the other side.

Parathas are ready ! Serve them with your choice of pickle and yogurt to make it a meal !

Starting with something sweet .. Rava-coconut ladoo

Back in my school days my mom used to make Rava-coconut ladoo very often at home. I used to love the taste of freshly made ladoos. On an unusually snowy day in Seattle when there wasn't much else to do I thought why not re-create this sweet treat.

So here is my rava - naral ladoo recipe :

Ingredients

1 cup rava (Usually fine rava is recommended but coarse is alright too. I used coarse since that is what I had at home.)

1/2 cup dessicated coconut

10-12 raisins

2 tablespoons charoli (roasted sunflower seed is the name I found for this). This is an optional element, if you dont have it no worries.

3 tablespoons ghee

1/2 cup water

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder

Procedure

1. Heat ghee in a sauce pan

2. Add rava, raisins and charoli to the ghee

3. Roast them till the rava is aromatic. Dont let the rava change its color much. We want as light a color as possible.

4. Once that is done, take the rava off the heat and transfer it to some plate to cool down.

5. In another pan bring the water to a boil and add sugar and cardamom powder to it.

6. Let the water and sugar mixture boil for about 3 minutes.

7. Add the rava mixture placed aside in step (4) to the sugar syrup in step (6)

8. Mix it well and keep stirring for about a minute.

9. Turn off the heat

10. Now wait for the mixture to cool down. About 20 minutes.

11. Apply some ghee to your hands and then roll your rava-coconut ladoos

Now you can enjoy your ladoo ! :)