Dothiyun~AlifBe~20
D^othiyun are sweet fried cookies coated with thick sugar glaze and garnished with nuts and dried rose petals!
Ingredients
For Cookies/Mathri
  • 1.25 cups All Purpose flour
  • A pinch of Salt
  • Two small pinches of Baking soda
  • 4-5 tsp Ghee
  • 2 tbsp Semolina
  • 4-6 tbsp milk or as much needed
  • Oil/Ghee/Vanaspati for frying
For the Syrup
  • 2 cups Sugar
  • ¾ cup Water
  • 3-4 Green Cardamoms
  • 3-4 drops of Rose essence
  • 8 Almonds, 5-6 Pistachios and few dried rose petals, chopped finely
Method
  1. Take 2 tbsp of semolina and add 2-3 tbsp of milk. Mix and keep aside, covered for 10-15 minutes.
  2. Now take the flour, salt and baking soda and sieve the mixture.
  3. Rub in Ghee in the sieved mix. The mix must look like bread crumbs.
  4. To this mix add the soaked semolina and start kneading the dough.
  5. Keep adding milk, a tbsp at a time till the mix binds well into a dough. You may need around 2-3 tbsp of milk here.
  6. Cover the dough and let it rest for 20 minutes.
  7. After 20 minutes, knead the dough to smoothen out a little.
  8. You can make small pingpong size balls and flatten each by pressing between palm or you can roll the dough and use cookie cutter or small katori with sharp edges to cut out small discs.
  9. Commercially available Sindhi Dothiyun are around 3 to 3 and half inch in diameter and ¾th of an inch in thickness. But since frying thick dothiyun takes longer time, ideally home made dothiyun are preferred to be 2" in diameter and ½ inch or less thick.
  10. Heat oil/ ghee/ mix of both or vanaspati (makes cookies crisp but health-wise it is not recommended) in a frying pan and once it is hot, lower the flame. Add 3-4 discs at a time and deep fry on low flame, till light golden brown.
  11. Repeat the process till all 'cookies' are fried.
  12. Drain on a kitchen towel and allow to cool completely. Keep covered with a mesh. Covering hot cookies with any plate or thick towel will make 'cookies' soggy.
  13. Start working on the syrup after 'cookies' are cooled for at least 2 hours. I left fried ones overnight.
  14. Before starting with sugar syrup, grease a steel thali with ghee and keep the chopped nuts and petals handy.
  15. In a pan mix sugar and water and cook it on low to medium flame.
  16. Add green cardamom, slightly pounded, if using.
  17. Keep stirring the syrup till it reaches 2 thread consistency. It may take around 10-12 minutes depending on the flame.
  18. Ideally the syrup should be cooked beyond 2 and half thread consistency (it should look cloudy) but I cooked the syrup till just around 2 thread consistency stage.
  19. Add few drops of rose essence, stir and switch off the flame immediately.
  20. Donot stir the syrup anymore..
  21. Let the syrup cool down a touch (3-4 minutes).
  22. You will have to work quickly now. Ask someone to help you, if needed.
  23. Now stir the syrup vigorously for a minute and dip a fried 'cookie', turn around a few times and place the soaked cookie on the greased thali, pour some syrup over it, top it up with the garnish of nuts and petals.
  24. Take another cookie and dip in the syrup and repeat the above process. You will have to go on garnishing each as soon as you pour syrup over it as the sugar will start crystallising almost immediately and garnishing it later wont work well.
  25. If you are not quick enough, chances are that the syrup in the pan will start crystallising before you can dip all the cookies. Don't panic. Just mix few spoons of hot water, mix (warm the syrup again, if needed) and start working again.
  26. Allow the sugar glaze to settle well. It may look transparent in the beginning but worry not. After a while you can see lovely thick sugar glaze. (Please refer the short video for this!)
  27. Store Dothiyun in an airtight container. It stays well for a fortnight but then it hardly lasts till then!
Recipe by Sindhi Rasoi |Sindhi Recipes at https://test.sindhirasoi.com/2021/05/dothiyunsindhisaataalifbe20/