Wheat Halwa

This is a typical Diwali treat at my place and my mom- in- law's signature dish. Just tried this out today. I like this home made version better than store bought ones. Its incredibly tasty and a melt in your mouth treat. It requires a bit of work but worth the effort. So do check out the recipe.

Ingredients

Samba Wheat grains -1 glass( 250 gms approximately)

Sugar-2 1/4 cup ( u can increase if you want it sweeter)

Cardamom pods -10 which were powdered

Cashews-A handful broken

Ghee-10 tablespoons(150 ml approximately)

Soak wheat grains overnight. I added 3 glasses of water to immerse the wheat grains.

Put the wheat grains in a mixer and grind . To extract the milk grind the wheat with one glass of water and extract the milk. The first extract will be thick, the last extract will be watery. I did this procedure thrice. Discard the glutinous mass of wheat. Use a sieve to filter the milk.

The filtered wheat milk will look like this.  If you keep this aside, the milk will remain at the bottom and the water will remain on top. I did not discard the water because the wheat milk will coagulate fast and might get charred if not careful.

Now prepare the sugar syrup. Take sugar in a pan add 3/4 cup of water to the sugar. Start stirring it. Take a little bit of milk and add it to the sugar syrup to remove the scum. You can see the scum in the picture above.

Stir this mixture till it attains a single string consistency. You can check the consistency with your finger.

 The wheat milk has been added to the sugar syrup. Stir this well till it forms a mass. 

Take a little bit of color and add this to the mixture. After this you will have to add cardamom and cashew nuts. You have to keep stirring the mixture well and cannot leave it unattended. You have to keep adding ghee, as you are stirring in stages as it forms a mass.

You can see the I have added the cardamom powder,cashew nuts and ghee and the mixture is forming into mass. The main difficulty in making this sweet is stirring. I had to stir this for 45 minutes.Its better to stir this on a low flame to prevent it from getting charred. This is important if you want to make pieces.

Please check this consistency,  the whole mixture has formed a ball.

Grease a plate with ghee. Put the whole mixture on to a plate. Let it cool. Cut into desired shapes.

Cut into desired shapes. I cut them up into a diamond shape. This was not cloyingly sweet but just right. If you like it sweeter please add more sugar. I got 40 pieces for one glass of wheat.

Sending this to Diwali Special Sweets & Savories 

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Global Food Festival by Kalyani

Coriander Rolls For ICC

I really liked this months Indian Cooking Challenge.We were asked to try out Maharashtrian coriander rolls from Archana's Tried and Tested.When I read the recipe, it sounded delectable.Aromatic coriander stuffed in a dough and deep fried.Heaven indeed.Here goes my version of the recipe.

Ingredients:

For the covering

Besan-3/4th cup

Wheat Flour-3/4th cup

Chilli powder-1/2 tsp

Turmeric powder-1/4 tsp

Salt to taste

Oil-3 Tbsp(heated oil)

For the stuffing

Coriander Leaves-2 cups

Grated Coconut -2 Tbsp

Poppy seeds-1 Tbsp

Sesame seeds-1Tbsp

Oil-1Tbsp

Ginger,green chilli paste-1 tsp

Garlic-3 cloves

Onion-1

Lemon juice-2 Tbsp

Sugar-3/4th tsp 

Red chilli powder-1/2tsp

Salt to taste

For Tamarind Paste

2tsp oil+1 tsp garam masala+2tsp tamarind paste

Oil for deep frying

Method-Mix the dough with ingredients mentioned in the covering section.Make a stiff dough.Set aside for 30 minutes.Chop the coriander leaves and make sure you use a paper napkin to remove the moisture.Dry roast grated coconut,poppy seeds and sesame seeds individually.Blend into a course powder.Take oil in a pan roast the ginger green chilli paste,onion and garlic till well done.Let this cool.Now to this add chopped coriander leaves and the course powder.Add in the red chilli powder,sugar and lemon juice.Add salt to taste.This mixture tasted great by itself.This could be used as a filling for sandwiches.I felt like spooning off the stuffing all by myself.Now roll out the dough like a puri.Spread the tamarind paste.Place ample amount of stuffing.Make a roll and seal the edges.Take oil in a pan and deep fry till well done.I had these lovely rolls with tomato sauce.The Pudachi Wadi's tasted awesome.A keeper for sure. 

ICC-Suruttai Poli

I have been wanting to join ICC for a long time now.I spent half the time just thinking about it.Finally I decided to join the group.This is my first entry to the event.And what a sweet way to start.Srivalli challenged us with a recipe called Suruttai Poli suggested by Nithya's mom.This reminded me of Karjikai a sweet preparation in Karnataka.I had lots of queries regarding this recipe.Finally I told myself I will have my answers to all  the queries only if i give it a go.And so I did.

Ingredients for stuffing

1 cup -roasted gram

1 cup sugar

Cardamom-1 tsp

Grated coconut-1 tbsp
Cashew Nuts-20

Ingredients for poori

1 cup-Maida Flour

A pinch of salt

Water for kneading

Oil-for frying

Method

Put in a cup of Maida flour and knead with required amount of water to make a dough.Set it aside for 30 minutes.Powder sugar and roasted gram till smooth.I also added whole cardamoms to this flour.The aroma was so heavenly.Even the ants lined up on the table!Put in the ghee and fry cashew till light brown,add in the grated coconut and fry.Put this mixture into the sugar and roasted gram flour and mix well.Keep aside.Keep some kitchen towels ready,roll out thin pooris with a 10cm diameter and place it on them for ten minutes.Take a pan,pour in the oil,when ready fry these discs,this is the tricky part,if the pooris are over cooked they will puff up and become brittle.They should be put in the pan and taken out in jiffy when just done and largely white in colour.Put in on top of the kitchen towel,so that the excess oil gets drained.Add the filling in the corner of the poori and roll.The pooris have to be flexible to be able to roll. Put in a plate with the smooth side facing up.Enjoy the tasty poli when your hunger pang strikes.