Traditional Sweets
Like every festival in India, Sankranti is also associated with tasty and delicious sweets. Churn out some traditional delicacies this festive season with a bit of help from the Yo Vizag team!
Bobbatulu
Ingredients:
1 cup split green gram (mung dal/pesara pappu)
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
8-10 Cardamoms, powdered or 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
1 and 1/2 cup maida
A pinch of salt
1/4 cup oil
Method:
Knead the maida with a pinch of salt, oil and enough water to make very soft and pliable dough. Keep it covered for about 2 hours. Wash and cook the dal with just enough water. Drain out any extra water and mash it well. Add the sugar and mix well. Heat the mixture on low flame till almost dry. Set aside to cool. Add powdered cardamom, mix well and divide into 10 or 12 equal sized balls. Knead the maida mixture and divide it into equal number of balls.
Take a banana leaf or a plastic sheet (or an empty cleaned milk packet) and put a few drops of oil. Spread a maida ball on it with hand, thin at the edges and slightly thick in the middle. Put the sweet ball in the middle and cover it by bringing the edges of the maida dough together. Flatten the ball with your hand into flat circular chapatti. Carefully ease the chapatti onto a hot girdle (tava) lightly smeared with oil. Add a few drops of oil on the sides and fry both sides on low flame till mildly brown. Repeat the procedure for all the balls. Serve it with pure ghee
Kaja
Ingredients:
2 cups Maida
2 cups Sugar
1/4 cup Water
1/4cup Rice flour
4 tbsp melted Ghee
Oil for deep-frying
Method:
Knead the maida and water to make soft dough. Make sugar syrup (with 2 string consistency). Take a medium sized ball of dough and roll it into thin chapatti. Smear ghee in the rolled chapatti and sprinkle a little rice flour on it. Roll out another chapatti. Place it over the first one and smear it too with ghee and rice flour. Catch one end of the dual chapatti and roll it tightly, (like a mat) to make a long roll. Slice the roll to make half inch rolled pieces. Take each cut piece, and roll it thin, long and oblong (do not roll on the cut ends). Heat the oil in a deep wok on medium heat. Deep-fry each oblong slowly to golden brown. The layers should swell slightly to be clearly visible as they fry. Remove and dunk in the sugar syrup. Heat the mixture for a minute or two to let the sugar syrup seep into the Kajas.
Boondi Laddu
Ingredients:
2 cups Gram flour (senaga pindi / besan)
2 cups sugar
4 cups water
1 tbsp cardamom
2 tbsp cashew nuts
2 tbsp raisins
a pinch of cooking camphor
oil for deep frying
Method:
Prepare the sugar syrup by heating a mixture of 2 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar. Remove the scum which collects on the top and heat till the consistency reaches single string consistency. Add crushed cardamom powder and cooking camphor. Keep it covered to prevent crystallisation of the sugar, until the boondis are ready. Fry cashew nuts and raisins in a bit of ghee and set aside. To make the boondis, mix gram flour with two cups of water. Blend well to make a smooth batter (dosa consistency). Heat oil in a deep wok. Hold a steel strainer above the wok of heated oil and carefully pour a small amount of batter to it. Drops of batter fall into the oil and rise up. Remove the boondis after 5-10 seconds onto a paper towel. Transfer the boondis to the sugar syrup and continue making more boondis till the batter is used up. The boondis should absorb in all the sugar syrup. Add the fried nuts and raisins, mix well. Take a small handful and press tightly so that the boondis hold together, forming a laddu.
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