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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Samosa~The most famous Indian Snack

Alka Keswani — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 02:16:06 +0000

Indians need no introduction for this awesome snack,which is the most sought after, deep fried , crisp Maida cone, stuffed with scrumptious potato filling. If the name doesn’t activate the hunger spot in your brain, then you supposedly are not fit to be called a Foodie ! There are many versions of this lovely snack,varying from stuffing of veggies to Mawa , potato to keema , but obviously a potato filling is hands down winner (at least for me) ! So lets straight away head to the ingredients required and the method to make Samosas. Print Samosa~The most famous Indian Snack Prep time: 30 mins Cook time: 30 mins Total time: 1 hour Serves: 4-5 The most famous Indian snack, Samosa, the potato stuffing filled pastry cone, deep fried to the perfect crispness. Ingredients For stuffing Potatoes ¼ kg Salt as per taste Ginger a little bit Garlic 4-5 cloves Green chillies 2-3 or as per taste Dry coriander seeds (akha dhaniya) 1 tsp Fennel seeds (saunf ) 1tsp Cumin seeds 1 tsp Garam masala powder ½ tsp Boiled peas(optional) as many preferred Oil 2 tsp Chopped coriander leaves for garnishing For Maida cone All purpose flour (maida) 200 gms Cumin seeds ½ tsp Ajwain (carom /caraway seeds) ½ tsp or more Oil about 5-6 tsp ( using ghee yields more flaky pastry,but vegetable oil will also do) Salt as per taste Red chilly powder ¼ tsp (more or less will do) Water for kneading dough (luke warm) Oil for frying Method For stuffing Boil potatoes till just done. Let them cool and then peel and chop them into tiny chunks or you can mash it too (I prefer chunky bites) Boil peas (optional) and keep aside Dry grind ginger, garlic, fennel seeds, coriander seeds or if needed add just few drops of water In a pan or kadai, take 2 tsp of oil and add cumin seeds Let cumin change its colour to a darker shade and then add grounded paste Mix it properly and saute for few seconds but don't let it burn Add chopped/mashed potatoes and salt, garam masala powder and some chopped coriander leaves too you can add boiled peas too now Mix it properly and let the flavours blend on low heat for 2 minutes.Le it cool, then this stuffing is ready to be filled in maida pastry For maida Cone (pastry/covering) Take about 200 gm of all purpose flour and add salt, carom seeds and cumin seeds Add oil and mix it properly by rubbing in between palms of your hand so as to coat the oil to the flour This helps to make the layer crispy and flaky after frying Now add lukewarm water bit by bit and knead a stiff dough Let the dough rest for at least half hour Pat the dough with rolling pin to make it soft and manageable Now take a small portion (about ping ball size) and roll it in oval shape .The final ROTI should be thinner than the usual phulka Now cut this rolled roti into half and take one portion.It will look somewhat like a semicircle Now roll this into a cone shape and press the overlapping sides a bit so that it can hold the stuffing Carefully stuff it with the potato filling pressing down the filling slightly so that even the narrow bottom of cone is stuffed Now apply some water with your finger to the inner side of open ends of maidalayer and press it gently together so that the samosa is sealed. Repeat the procedure with other half semicircle roti and then with all the remaining dough. Now heat the oil for frying in a pan or kadai Drop the samosa carefully but take care that oil should not be too hot or else the layer will not be smooth (bubbles will appear on surface of maida layer) Fry them on medium to low flame until crisp brown 3.2.2265 2.2.1

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Praghree| Deep Fried Crunchy layered Puffs|Sindhi Sweet

Samosa~The most famous Indian Snack