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Praghree| Deep Fried Crunchy layered Puffs|Sindhi Sweet

Alka Keswani — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 08:55:04 +0000

Praghree (Praghri/Pragri), a deep fried crunchy, layered puff stuffed with Khoya/mawa, is a seasonal delicacy, made only during Holi Festival ( Indian Festival of colours). Rarely will you find these crunchy, sticky delights during rest of the year. Very high in calories but an addictive sweet, Praghree have many fans; specially from Sindhi Community. Almost every Sindhi sweet shop will stock this around Holi and generally there are two varieties of it. One is stuffed with Khoya and other with Chabu Halwo (cornflour pudding/Bombay Karachi halwa). This fascinating sweet could be made at home, but you need to have a heart to fry these in Dalda ghee (hydrogenated vegetable oil ) if you want the sweet to remain crunchy for long. As for me, I chickened out and fried it in sunflower oil. Well, there are many minute details that I need to share with you all, regarding this recipe, so stay focused here! Generally everyone around, buy Praghree from sweet shop, during the festive season. Seldom people make these at home.Hence not much of the reference was available online or in cookbooks. So let me first thank the people who helped me out to gather information and provide tips. I had the brief idea of making Praghree and the rough measurements of ingredients, thanks to Late ‘Baba’, an elderly person in my neighborhood. I have some of his recipes, on this blog of mine. So the base recipe is of ‘Baba’. But sadly he left us before I can get exact details of ‘folding’ and ‘rolling’ praghree, in traditional ways. After loads of research, I found that the texture and look of praghree resembles Spiral curry puffs, not exactly, but I think that the similar method of rolling might work. Before I could make up my mind to take a plunge, I came across the BLC’s ‘Flavors of Sind‘ book and I was happy to find a workable method of making Praghree. I went ahead with the method mentioned in the book and followed the recipe casually shared by Late ‘Baba’, and voila ! I got nice, crunchy, crisp golden Praghree. After all the efforts put in, I was happy to munch on a home made praghree, but then I realized that though it was crunchy and sweet, the sweetness lacked the depth of flavor. Also by next day, the leftover Praghree went soggy, unlike store brought ones, that stay crunchy even if stored for days. And then I did, what I always do, when I get stuck up with any Sindhi recipe; sending a distress call to Suresh Hinduja~The celebrity Chef of GourmetIndia !. As usual he enlightened me with some handy tips and of course I am going to share those with you all, at the end of the recipe Also my friend Kurush Dalal helped me a lot in my ‘research’, while I was trying to understand the origin and basics of this recipe. Thanks to him, I now know that even Parsi and Bohri cuisine have a sweet delicacy named Mawa Nu Khaja, which is made in somewhat similar way. The Parsi version also makes use of clotted cream apart from mawa/khoya. PLEASE NOTE: The recipe have loads of scope for hits-and- miss. So in case, you try out this recipe, please let me know whether it worked for you or not. Your inputs will help me and other readers of this blog, to fine tune this recipe further. Also I used ‘unsweetened mawa’ instead of sweetened one and added few spoons of powdered sugar to it (not a good decision !). Please try to grab some sweetened mawa for better flavor. I generally do not use any kind of essence (except vanilla essence for the bakes) and artificial colours in my food. This too backfired, and excluding out rose essence made the syrup very bland. So please use Rose and/or Kewra essence in the syrup…just few drops ! So now lets head towards the Recipe… Print Praghree| Deep Fried Crunchy layered Puffs|Sindhi Sweet Rating 4.7 from 6 reviews Prep time: 30 mins Cook time: 40 mins Total time: 1 hour 10 mins Serves: 7 Traditional SIndhi Sweet, deep fried crunchy puffs stuffed with Mawa and soaked in flavored sugar syrup Ingredients For the puff pastry: All Purpose flour (Maida) 2 and ¼ cups Dalda/Ghee ¼ cup Water to knead the dough For uncooked Roux (Paste) ¾ cup melted ghee 3 tsp All purpose flour For Sugar syrup: 11/4 cup sugar ¾th Cup water Few Saffron strands soaked in 1tbsp of water Few drops of Rose essence 3-4 green cardamom pods, crushed Other Ingredients: 300 gm mawa (sweetened) Dalda/ Ghee/ Oil for frying Dried rose petals for garnishing (optional) Varq (Varak, or thin, beaten silver foil) and/or unsalted pistachios for garnishing (Optional) Method For Sugar Syrup: In a pan, mix 1¼ cup sugar with 1 cup of water, add crushed cardamoms and soaked saffron (along with the water in which saffron was soaked) and boil the syrup for around 3-4 minutes, or till a thin syrup is made. Put off the flame and add 2-3 drops of rose essence.Mix and keep it covered with a lid. For the Crunchy crust : Mix the maida and Dalda/ghee and knead a stiff flour using some water. Let it rest for a while. The rested dough is now ready to roll. Divide the dough into 7 portions. Take one portion (let us call this portion as Portion A) out on the rolling board/clean surface and cover the rest of the dough so that it doesn't dry out! Now divide this Portion A, into 4 smaller portions, each being of the size smaller than a lemon/lime. Roll these four individual portions into small chapatis.Roll the dough Alternatively, you can a take a portion of dough and roll out a huge, thin disc, then using a steel bowl (katori), cut out small portions (the way cookies are cut using cookie cutters), put aside the cut discs and mix the remaining dough back to the kneaded dough. Make rest of the smaller discs in similar way...i.e rolling out a portion of dough, cutting out smaller disc using bowl..so on, so forth!) Prepare an uncooked roux/paste of melted ghee and maida. Smear each small chapati with this paste (Approx. 1-11/2 tsp for each chapati), by spreading the paste well. This roux or paste will work as binding agent between the layers. Now cut each chapati into 2 cm wide strips. Place the strips one on other . Repeat the same with rest of three chapatis and place all the strips on each other, to make a stack.Press this stack, gently! Now cut this stack into four portions (as shown in picture, below) and again stack each portion, one over top of other. Press it gently Here's how the tower of the strips look likes! Sprinkle some dry flour on rolling board/ clean surface and roll the prepared stack into more or less circle shape. Place a heaped tsp (or a bit more) of sweetened mawa in the centre of the rolled chapati.Now dip your fingers in water and gently tap your fingers around the mawa (be careful as not to press the edges ). Gently fold over the rolled dough, to make a half circled, filled chapati (Like Gujiya). Press the dough around the mawa stuffing (and not around the edges of the half circle). This will be our first Pragri (puff). Repeat this whole procedure with the remaining 6 portions. (Remember? We have divided the original dough into 7 portions and so far we were working on just portion A.Repeat this with Portion B, C,D...) (Phew!) Keep all the puffs covered with a cloth to avoid formation of any crusts. Now heat dalda/oil/ or mixture of dalda and oil, in a frying pan. Deep fry each puff, one at a time, on the lowest flame, turning intermittently, very gently, till golden brown. Frying on higher flame will leave the puffs undercooked from inside. Drain on kitchen towel/ tissue paper and fry the rest of the puffs, one at a time! COOL THE PUFFS COMPLETELY ! Once all the puffs have cool down completely, simply warm the syrup (just warm) and dip each puff in this syrup.Make sure that the puff is completely coated with the syrup.(You can hold each puff in syrup for few seconds) Place the syrup coated puff on a plate and garnish with petals/ varak/nuts. Cool and store in airtight containers.These stay good at room temperature for few days. Notes 1) You can add chopped nuts or crushed dried fruits to the sweetened mawa.2) You can stuff the puffs with Bombay karachi halwa (Place a piece of halwa in the centre of rolled chapati,instead of mawa.TIPS SHARED BY Mr. SURESH HINDUJA FOR CRUNCHY PRAGHREE !1) Adding 'Khasta' or ghee to the dough. (Shall make the pastry crisp)2) Using Dalda ghee to make roux (paste).3) Frying Praghree in Dalada ghee instead of oil (This will ensure that the pastry will stay crisp for long)4) Adding a bit of rose essence and saffron to the syrup (This will enhance the flavor of syrup)5) Keeping the syrup thin and not thick ( Thicker syrup will make the pastry soggy)6) As soon as the syrup is ready, cover it with a lid to trap the aroma.I am sure that if anyone making the Praghree at home, will be able to make it better than mine, since now you all have the handy hints by Suresh. Thank you Suresh, for the kind help and handy tips ! 3.5.3251

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Gulabjamun~The Recipe

Alka Keswani — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:23:38 +0000

Starting with a Thank you , to all who cared to respond my post through comments and Emails , and all those who tried to help me decide a picture for Click event, I am glad to send the one that got most of the votes..The first picture of Gulabjamun from my previous post . So this one goes for the Click event~Heirloom This is a Recipe which remained in Drafts for the longest period, the reason being that store brought Gulabjamuns are so convenient to find here and also , these do not cost a bomb. Moreover I find making sweets too unnecessary , since we hardly eat sweet stuff and those in family who love sweets are “barred” from even looking at these, leave aside eating , obviously due to health reasons. But then, I do occasionally give in to the temptation of some appreciation , from the followers of my blog, when I share a particular recipe they keep asking for. Besides, the CLICK event is a huge driving force in itself, so when Jai and Bee asked for Heirloom…here I am with an old cherished Recipe of most cherished Sweet(Mithai) of Indians, with some cherished memories of my childhood(Oh No..Not Again !). Amongst many memories of past , and most of them related to food, one scenario that still lingers around my mind is of a frail, elderly man, always dressed in white, come rain or sunshine, with his aluminum ,wide mouthed container, lined up with stacks of thin, elongated(yes elongated..almost like a finger) hot, perfectly browned, perfectly sweetened , melt in mouth gulabjamuns. Sundays were most cherished days of all, since it used to be a day when whole family sat in front of Television to watch popular serials like Ramayana and Mahabharta, waiting for that elderly man to give a shout ”Radhey Ja Garam Jhamuh” roughly translated as Hot Gulabjamuns of Radhey..yes the man was called Radhey ! All the kids around, made sure that they get their share of gulabjamuns and saved their petty pocket money to buy the hot, fresh, straight from the stove(a mobile stove, which burnt on low flame,that kept jamuns hot to the core) each piece costing 25 paise (1/4 of an Indian Rupee…don’t ask me to convert into pence /penny/ paiso..go figure it out). So a Rupee used to fetch us four of those yummy sugar bombs , lined on a paper with a dash of sugar syrup. Enjoying those with family watching our favorite Tv. serials(At those times there were only handful of them being aired, that too mostly on Sundays…Ahh what a bliss it was !) was a feeling equivalent to being in Heaven..I swear ! For years we enjoyed his home made gulabjamuns in winter and monsoon, while some really creamy, garnished with pistachios, Kulfi was a Hot (Cool) favorite in summers. Yes, the Gulabjamuns used to give way for Kulfi in summers and till this date we are unable to figure out how did he managed to sale such a good quality stuff in pennies. It was during that wonderful period of my life that visiting maternal side Grandparents was a regular affair in vacations. The memories of spending time with cousins and aunts , uncles and Naana Naani( grandparents) still moisten my eyes , everytime I think about it. My Maasi ( Mother’s Sister) always made sure that we kids thoroughly enjoyed our stay at grandparents home, by taking us out to playgrounds, gardens, Beaches, temples, Movies etc. religiously everyday of our stay there, year after year. My Grandparents residing in Chembur, another Sindhi Populated area in Mumbai, the Jhama Store was at stone throw distance from their home. This particular Sweets shop is famous all around the place for its mind blowing Gulabjamuns, though bit costlier but good to taste at. So no visit of ours would be called off without some of these brown sweets, and everytime someone visits us from Chembur, its almost mandatory that Jhama’s Speciality…huge Gulabjamuns are on their way, about to reach our homes to fill our minds with the sweet memories of our childhood as we sweeten our taste buds with huge bites of soft spongy, hot and fresh , the one and only one…Gulabjamun…… UPDATE: Here is what I found about Jhama Stores….thought to share with you all 🙂 Jhama’s >>> Chembur It gets its name from proprietor Jhamamal Lulla, a Sindhi refugee from Karachi who set it up in 1950. “Our family lived in the refugee camps nearby,” says 30 year-old Ravi, a third generation Lulla. His grandfather’s culinary skills and reputation for using ingredients of the highest quality, brought him regulars. Close to six decades later, Jhama’s has seven branches across the city but the Chembur branch is still patronised by Sindhi families. Staffer for fifteen years, Naresh Chawla says a lot of movie stars are regulars. Amitabh Bachchan once named Jhama’s Gulab Jamuns in a list of his 7 favourite things. Then there’s Salman Khan, who picks up sweets while driving down to his Panvel farmhouse. How to get there: The wide, red signboard cannot be missed on CG Road, near Chembur colony and Basant Cinema. Open from 11 am to 1 pm, Mondays to Sundays.(Source: Mid-Day ) So here they are , soaked in lots of sweet musings , Home made gulabjamuns…Enjoy ! There are number of recipes of Gulabjamun , easily searchable on internet, and as far as the recipe I follow, it is an easy breezy one, of course, only if you have some Mawa handy. The Gulabjamun recipe is divided in two parts, one is making BALLS of flour and frying them. The other is making sugar syrup, not too thick nor too thin(sounds tricky, learn more about sugar syrups here) Print Gulabjamun~The Recipe Rating 5.0 from 3 reviews The most popular Indian Dessert, made from Khoya and dunked in sugar syrup Ingredients 500 gms of sugar( Though we found it bit too sweet for our taste, so adjust accordingly) One and half cup of water(bit more or less) 2-3 Cardamom pods One spoon of milk (optional) Few threads of saffron (optional) 2-3 drops of rosewater(optional but highly recommended) 250 gms of unsweetened Maawa (khoya-the condensed milk thickened till it turns into moist dough, preferably made from cow's milk, also known as Hariyali mawa) 1½-2 tsp All purpose flour 1tsp Cornflour 1-2 crushed green cardamom Oil for shallow frying Method Mix about 500 gm of white sugar in one and half cup water and keep it for boiling. Add a spoonful of milk to remove the impurities (impurities if any , will form a scum on surface) Add 2-3 green cardamoms also in syrup for strong flavor, and a tad of saffron strings (optional) Boil until you get just a tad sticky syrup.Gulabjamun syrup is not very dense nor too dilute as in Rasgulla Strain the syrup, add rosewater when syrup is slightly cooled . Always remember two things while using rose water, do not add it while syrup is bubbling hot or on fire, and be particular about the quantity mentioned in every recipe, since even few drops of excess rosewater could lend a bitter taste to the final product. Mix all the ingredients, in a a wide mixing bowl or Thaal ,until soft textured dough is obtained (keep mixing until it is really soft) Make very small sized balls (bit larger than pebbles) coz they swell up after frying and soaking in syrup Make sure that the surface of dough balls is really smooth (no cracks please).In case the cracks refuse to go away, slightly wet your palms with water and roll the flour till absolutely smooth Now take little oil for frying in preferably flat bottomed pan, and heat the oil. But gulabjamuns are to be fried on LOW FLAME or else the surface will be browned while the core will remain uncooked. Some prefer to place an unsalted pistachio in the center of every gulabjamun while making balls, that way the core of gulabjamun is not left uncooked . Fry one or 2 gulabjamuns at a time and always remember to STIR THE OIL with slotted spoon AND NOT TO TOUCH GULABJAMUNS, which means keep swirling the oil without tossing or turning gulabjamun . Fry till light brown in colour, remove on tissue paper and repeat the procedure with rest of dough Now soak these in COOL syrup for few hours.They will surely swell up These can be stored in the same syrup till consumed If there are cracks in the balls before frying it will burst open while frying, in that case adding a bit of cornflour will surely help You can enjoy it hot or cold ,either way it is delicious 2.2.1 These are regular Gulabjamuns, in case you like Black Gulabjamuns then here is what you need to know: Gulab Jamun gets its brownish red color because of the sugar content in the milk powder or khoya. In other types of gulab jamun, sugar is added in the dough, and after frying, the sugar caramelization gives it its dark, almost black colour, which is then called kala jamun, “black jamun”. Note: Making mawa from scratch is not difficult but time consuming Four cups of whole milk will boil down to about 6 ounces of mawa milk fudge (Source..wiki)

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Naariyal Mithai for Independence day

Alka Keswani — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:09:37 +0000

15 th August, The Independence Day of Our India, is truly a special day for all Indians.To salute the spirit of this day, Pooja of My creative Ideas came with a wonderful event As per Pooja Here are the rules to participate in this event: “Cook anything with 3 colors of flag of India. (Orange , White and Green – you can cook dish finally resulting in any of these 3 colors / any single color / all of 3 , slight variation in color of final dish is perfectly OK” I simply loved the idea, because for people like me who cannot actively contribute to the festivity of this Memorable day, what is better than to cook a thing as special as the day itself? So here I come with a Typical Sindhi Mithai, made with dessicated coconuts.I know there is still a week to go for the D Day, but considering the pathetic situation of non availability of Electricity for almost 8 hrs everyday and Internet connections going Kaput every now and then, hence I didn’t wanted to wait till next week.Despite of all the jabbering against the place I live, Istill love my India.So wishing you all a very patriotic Independence day ! This is also my entry for Easycraft’s WYF-COlour in food event since I had used Green colour in this mithai and green is my favourite colour in food Nariyal mithai: Print Naariyal Mithai for Independence day Rating 4.0 from 2 reviews Prep time: 10 mins Cook time: 25 mins Total time: 35 mins Ingredients Dessicated coconut powder (easily available at stores as naariyal ka chura) 250 gm Milk powder 2 spoons Sugar 250 gm Water 2 small cups Green colour (edible food colour) White rose essence few drops Method In a thick bottom pan, add water and sugar and let it boil for few minutes till a syrup of thick consistency is obtained (this is tricky one, as syrup should not be too dilute, nor too thick) Now divide this syrup into two halves, add little amount of green colour in one half and leave the other half as it is. Now mix milk powder in the coconut powder Put the colourless syrup in the pan and add half of the coconut mixture in it and cook it, mixing continuously, so that the coconut doesn't get burned or charred Cook till the mixture start sticking to pan Put it off the flame and mix few drops of rose essence and pour the mix on greased plate and smoothen down till the layer is at least 1 inch thick (a little more or less is ok) Now repeat the same procedure with green syrup and remaining coconut powder and lay it over the white layer, smoothing it down (you can wet your hands, coz the hot mixture is sticky) Let it cool for a while and then cut it into pieces of desired shape 2.2.1

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Two Awards….Toh kuch meetha ho jaaye !!

Alka Keswani — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:15:00 +0000

Well June started with rains of monsoon in my real world and rains of awards in blogo-world! Now my July also had started on good note,with Two awards……Good going Alka…Let me pat my back..he he he;-) On some serious note, I am grateful to Medha of Cook with love for passing on these wonderful awards to me, I am sure whoever gets an award will be able to imagine how elated one feels after receiving them! And Medha, let me take your kind permission to pass on these awards to deserving bloggers in my next post and also I will “Un tag “myself in my next post ! So kindly allow me to hold on these awards with lots of care and love until then So let’s celebrate this occasion with something sweet.People who had followed my blog from start would have noted the step motherly treatment given to sweets and desserts by me.I swear I don’t do that purposely, it’s just that Idon’t have a sweet tooth and I can’t gobble down anything sweet. I even prefer my Cuppa of Tea without sugar and if with sugar, then it has to be with either spicy biscuits or Khari, pakora or samosas. I feel astounded when I spot somebody eating a piece of Mithai (sweet) or ladoos and by just looking at them eating sweet make me crave for having something spicy and hot ASAP…..lolz !! But I promise now that I will occasionally come up with some sweet dishes too and this one is just the beginning…… Lapsi or dalia or burglar wheat or broken wheat or Bhaat as we call in sindhi….different regions know this wonderful grain by different name.This cracked wheat is really nutritious as it is unrefined wheat, high in fibre and manganese (with reference to Tarla Dalal) Bhaat jho seero or Lapsi halwa, is a simple preparation but generally loads of oil is used to make this.My version is bit different, as I had used minimum of oil,which had made this halwa crumbly and not soft and mushy as it should be.Just play with the amount of oil and sugar and you will get many variants of this dish This Bhaat jho seero goes for Nupur of onehotstove who is hostingMBP-Less is more which meansthat you have to browse through your favorite blogs and your bookmarked recipes and choose those that have FIVE ingredients or FEWER to make for this event. So here I go with Bhaat jho seero, a recipe inspired from The cooker Print Two Awards....Toh kuch meetha ho jaaye !! Prep time: 5 mins Cook time: 20 mins Total time: 25 mins Serves: 2-3 Broken wheat halwa, a delicious sweet made from lapsi. Ingredients Broken wheat or bhaat 1 cup Oil 2-3 spoons Sugar ½ cup or more(depends on how much sweet you like it to be) Green cardamons 4-5 Water about 3 cups (I actually needed to add some more water to cook it completely) Method Take the oil in a thick bottomed pan and heat it Now add lapsi and green cardamons, roast these properly on medium flame, tossing it regularly so that it doesn't burn Roast it till lapsi changes its colour and a pleasant aroma starts filling your kitchen Now carefully add the water (beware of spluttering) and mix properly Let it cook on low flame and keep stirring at regular intervals Add sugar when lapsi is almost cooked and mix it properly Let it cook till all the water is evaporated and lapsi is cooked properly It could be served, hot, warm or cold and could be garnished with almonds or nuts of your choice 2.2.1

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