gudpaarey, gud waley shakkarpaarey | fried pastry coated with jaggery

Our Diwali has always been quite and this time was no exception. Yes we try and do the mandatory spring cleaning on the pretext of welcoming the Goddess Laxmi, get some earthen diyas and some tealight candles to light them on Diwali eve, and make some mithai for the prasad offering to Laxmi Ganesh puja. And that prasad offering is always a simple besan ka laddu and shakkarparey that my mother in law used to make.

Arvind loves these sweet treats that are made so rarely now, not that I don't like these but someone else's choices are greater excuse. Over the years I have realised that our traditional sweets are way more healthy than the industrially made desserts and pastries, even though the calorific value may not be less.

Here is all my effort that took the shape of some sweets and savouries. The white coloured trail mix is a popped rice and peanuts trail mix with a tempering of chillies, curry leaves, cumin and hint of turmeric just like my mother used to make. We get popped rice (called Kheel or dhaan ka lava) only during Diwali season and I try and make the most of this opportunity. This kheel ki namkeen is quite an old favourite of mine. More about that later.

Today I am sharing the recipe of jaggery coated shakkarparey. This is a deep fried pastry (fried dough) coated with fennel infused jaggery. It can be called as jaggery glazed fried cookies too.

I normally make these sugar coated shakkarparey but this time my brother came home and we started talking of the things we liked as kids. We were reminded of the jaggery coated miniature khaja (a deep fried flaky layered pastry) and a jaggery coated sev (finger shaped sticks made of chickpea flour) and of course these gudparey. You know we had a collective obsession about all things jaggery.

I changed my shakkarparey plan to gudparey conveniently and all of us loved them. When I posted the picture on Instagram someone asked for the recipe. The recipe in fact is quite simple but someone who wants to make it for the first time would need instructions. So here it is.

I made a lot of it, packed some for my brother and gave some to the house help and still have some to enjoy over a month. A couple of these is good enough to bring a rich taste. It is not like overly sugary stuff that makes you keep craving for it the whole day.

ingredients 
(make more than a kilo of gudparey)

500 gm maida (or atta)
80-100 gm ghee (for shortening)
cold (not chilled) water to knead the dough
300 gm jaggery (see *note)
3 tbsp or 50 ml water
1 tbsp fennel coarsely pounded
ghee for deep frying (about 500 gm total, about 200 gm gets used)

procedure

Rub the 100 gm ghee in the maida till it looks like breadcrumbs and binds together when you press a portion of the flour in your fist. Now add cold water slowly and knead in quick movements. You have to be careful not to overwork the dough, just let it get together in a ball. Overkneading doesn't allow the layers form in the shakkarparey.

Now divide the dough into 4-5 parts and roll out 1 cm thick sheet. Cut the sheet into bite sized diamond shapes. Repeat till you use up the whole dough.

Heat ghee and deep fry the diamond shaped shakkarparey in batches. It has to be fried on low flame so the layers of the shakkarparey open up while frying.

Once all the diamond shaped shakkaparey are fried start working with the jaggery.

Chop the jaggery and mix with water and fennel in a wide and deep kadhai. Cook till the jaggery melts and starts frothing. You have to make *teen taar ki chashni* which means a thick syrup that is ready to crystallise. There is a way to check this stage of the syrup.

In the beginning when you let the jaggery syrup drop from the stirring ladle it drips in one thick stream, later it forms 2 thinner streams and when you cook it further for a few more minutes it starts making three thin streams dripping off the ladle, *teen taar ki chashni*. This is when you have to work quickly.

Pour the syrup over the fried shakkarparey and start mixing them in soft but quick movements. In about a couple of minutes the syrup starts getting dry and each diamond shaped shakkarpara gets separated from each other. Let it cool and then pack in air tight container after the initial round of tasting.

We were four of us to do the tasting round this time. What pleasure when there are more people to enjoy the food being cooked. Festivals are just about cooking and eating together, praying together and welcome the changing season.

*Note : I have practice of making these and other jaggery or sugar coated snacks like this jaggery coated almonds, so I can handle an even and thin coating of jaggery over these. If you are making it for the first time it may not get evenly coated but there is nothing to worry about, just use more jaggery and keep stirring the shakkarparey or nuts being coated till they are all separated from the sticky drying jaggery syrup. The extra jeggery will remain in the pan that can be used to make some other dessert or simple maleeda.

urad daal aur sowa ke pakode | lentil fritters with dill leaves

Daal ke pakode is a winter snack made with tea or coffee in the evenings or for weekend breakfasts in many homes. Weekend breakfast mostly becomes a brunch for us but we normally don't cook elaborated meals on weekends and make something that we enjoy eating in leisure but simpler to cook. So mostly it is something like a platter of hot pakode or crisp cooked methi or alu ke paranthe in this season or a huge bowl of salad in summers. Newspapers and such comforting meals make our weekend mornings very relaxed, usually very late mornings in fact, stretching out well till afternoon.

I had soaked urad ki daal (split and skinned black beans) last week to make some kanji vada to be soaked in the kanji that was fermenting on my kitchen counter and a relaxed Saturday brunch of sowa wale daal ke pakode. But on Friday evening one of Arvind's friends called and came to visit us on a short notice for tea. I decided to quickly fry some daal ke pakode and harey lasun ki chutney with chai and as it turned out, this snack became our dinner that day. Not that I am complaining, I did fry some plain vadas and soaked them in the kanji to make the much craved for kanji vadas.

Sowa bhaji is a fragrant leafy green that is usually mixed with spinach or methi (fenugreek greens) to make saag or stir fries. We love it in our daals, raw chutneys and even in lehsun sagga. It was after a long time I made pakodas with these dill greens. All of us loved this impromptu meal of pakodas.

ingredients 
(enough pakodas for a gathering where no one minds portions)

urad daal 1.5 cup soaked overnight or minimum 3 hours
chopped dill greens 2 cups packed
minced green chillies 2 tsp or to taste
minced or grated fresh ginger root 1 tbsp or a bit more
coarse pepper powder 1 tsp
anardana powder 1-2 tsp (optional)
salt to taste
mustard oil for deep frying

procedure 

Discard the soaking water and grind the soaked daal to a smooth paste. Whip some more while still in the mixie jar to make the batter light. Do not add water while making this paste else the batter will get runny and the pakodas would absorb too much oil while frying.

Mix this batter with all the other ingredients except the oil and start frying right away. Keeping it for long makes the batter runny and it absorbs more oil while frying.

Heat the oil in a deep kadhai and fry small portions of the batter to make pakodas. You can use a rounded dessert spoon or soup spoon to scoop the batter and drop it in hot oil to make pakodas, depending on what size of pakodas you want.

Take care to fry them at medium flame so they cook thoroughly, these pakodas do not soak much oil as urad daal is quite sticky and the surface of the pakodas get sealed quickly in the hot oil.

Serve hot with any green chutney but this green garlic chutney works really well with this dill flavoured daal ke pakode.

To make this green garlic chutney mix a cup of chopped green garlic (leaves and some of the bulbs) with a cup of chopped green coriander leaves along with 3-4 green chillies, 1 tsp chopped ginger, salt to taste and lime juice to taste. The chutney is so good you would want to make it everyday with all your meals. We eat too much green garlic in this season.

These urad daal ke pakode are irresistible. I suggest you to make it a meal always as such snacks feel guilty if one is heading for a meal after this. Or serve it as starters for an elaborate meal for guests and see how fast they fly.

fara, goojha or peetha : the steamed lentil stuffed dumplings from UP

 Cooking a traditional recipe always warms me up. I love the nostalgia it brings with it, I remember how my grandmother used to make it and then my mother and how all of us siblings would huddle up in the kitchen and be curious. No wonder all of us siblings (two brothers and three sisters in all) are foodies and great cooks. Though when it comes to try the more labor intensive and time consuming recipes it's yours truly who plays granny. And I love doing this and I love when I see happy faces around me. Food always succeeds in spreading happiness. This goojha as we call it at home is a family favorite. It is called fara (singular) or Farey (plural) or pitha in different parts of UP. Bengalis make a sweet version of the same dumpling with a jaggery and coconut stuffing.

I find the fara one of the many dumplings that are made in south-east Asia. Momos, steamed bao, Tingmo or siu mai are all staple foods wherever they are cooked and people find excuses to make such meals even in modern kitchens that trashes the belief that only junk fried foods are liked by all.

I had promised this fara and many of you took interest in this ( I love you all for this )...... an anonymous reader (why anonymous?) said that he/ he will be happy to see if it is with the rice outer shell. I wanted to fulfill this wish so I made the rice flour at home, and tried to cook the rice dough which is a tricky process. Normally I just make a dough of 1:1 ratio of rice and whole wheat and that is good enough to make the fara shells. It took me the whole day rinsing and drying the rice, grinding it and then cooking the dough. Okay about 6 hrs to be precise. It was about about 2 hrs on the kitchen counter and the time spent, the muscle work done was all worth it. We got a whole lot of fara to last a week.


To make the rice flour at home you need to wash the rice (I used basmati tukda or broken basmati) , drain well in a colander and spread it on a news paper to get a bit dry for about 2 hrs in shade. Test by taking a handful and crushing it in your fist, it should get crushed to smaller bits. Now it's ready to be ground in the dry grinder of your mixie.
You can use ready made rice flour too if available.

The right side heap of rice is crushed by hands to test for readiness.........

chana daal and urad daal were also soaked for 4-5 hours and ground wet in the mixie with appropriate spices.....

Now see the ingredients for the filling...

for urad dal filling 

urad dal soaked 1.5 cup
red chilly powder 1 tsp
asafoetida 1 pinch
aromatic garam masala 1 tsp
salt to taste

grind everything together with minimal water .

for the chana daal filling 
chana daal soaked 2 cup
green chillies 5 nos.
garlic cloves 5-6 nos.
ginger 2 inch piece
cumin seeds 2 tsp
black pepper corns 2 tsp
salt to taste
salt to taste
turmeric powder 1 tsp

grind everything together with minimal water.

ingredients for the outer shell ..

rice flour 2 cups and some more
whole wheat flour 2 cups or as needed
salt to taste

To make the whole wheat dough you just mix whole wheat flour n rice flour in equal amounts, add salt to taste and make a medium soft dough by adding appropriate amount of water. Adding the rice flour to the wheat dough makes the fara have a nice bite, and it is more moist even when cold.

Making the rice dough is tricky. But rest assured it is very forgiving and you can always nip and tuck the mistakes.....
first of all measure 2 cups of water and salt to taste (for 1 cup of flour) and boil the water covered in a pateela or preferably handi.  Don't use a wide pan here.

Click to enlarge the image below to read instruction on it.

As soon as the water comes to rolling boil open the lid and pour the rice flour at once and cover the lid immediately. Do not stir the mix and let it cook for 4-5 minutes or till the water spills off a little. Check that the rice flour lump will look glazed, it reveals rice flour in powder form when poked but that is how it needs to be. Take the pot off the flame.

Now use a large fork or a sturdy ladle or a wire whisk to mix it vigorously.

It may appear lumpy first but be patient and add more rice flour if it's too sticky, don't worry about the lumps as you have to knead it with hands once it is cold enough to handle.

Knead with your hands when it is cool enough to handle.

Make a pliable medium soft dough which you can roll easily, more rice flour can be added but the dough should become smooth. You can oil your hands while doing it.

Now is the time to shape the faras, pull out small portions of the dough, roll small disks about 1 cm thick and place the dal mixture over it, fold and make a semi circle and seal the top leaving the corners open .....

I make them in different sizes and shapes and I prefer filling urad dal mixture in the rice dough and the chana dal mixture in the wheat dough. You are free to have your own combination .

The bigger faras take less time to assemble but more time to cook, I prefer slicing them and frying them for a nice crunchy tea time snack.

There are two ways to cook the fara or goojha, you can either steam them over a steamer plate or boil them in lots of water like you boil pasta. The steaming over a porous plate is explained in the collage above. And boiling in a wide pot with lots of water is explained below.

While you are shaping the faras, boil water (with a little salt and a tbsp of oil) in a big wide pateela, when the water starts boiling slip the faras into it taking care not to scald yourself.
All the dumplings will be submerged in water at once, but they will start coming up as soon as they start cooking. Let it cook for another 3-7 minutes after they float on the surface, 3 minutes for the smaller ones and 7 minutes for the bigger daddies.




Take out one of them and prick with a pointed knife, if it comes out clean it's cooked.

Use a slotted spoon to fish them all out, you may need to boil them in two batches but this is the easiest step and you'd feel like popping one of them in your mouth as soon you fish them out.......

They can be served right away if you want them steamed and it makes a filling satisfying and yummy dinner. I have fond memories of having a large platter of these on the dining table,  just out of boiling water and all of us sitting and eating them as if there is no tomorrow.

This time I halved one of the bigger ones and had it just when the second batch was cooking.

It has such a wonderful bite, the covering is a perfect wrap for a soft crumbly spicy filling, a bite into the doughy shell leads to aromatic spicy interiors. A perfect alternative to daal roti, healthier and exotic desi.

I don't even need a chutney with it I like it so much.
A green chutny or even a sonth chutny is a great accompaniment, but I prefer making the filling spicy and no accompaniments whatsoever.

Yeah it is a different story with the fried ones. I generally fry the refrigerated ones, you know I make them for a week as I can't have enough of them in one go.

It keeps very well in the fridge and you can fry the smaller ones whole and the bigger ones can be sliced and fried to make exotic tea time snacks. They don't absorb oil and as you drain them on tissue paper any oil clinging to the surface is also absorbed by the tissue.

We had these for the evening tea.

These are so filling that you are free for 4-5 hours after having 2-3 of the smaller ones .....

The covering becomes a bit hard and crunchy after frying, without taking any oil and we love it.

It is after years that I have made them, though I was thinking of making these for a long time. Ravioli pasta and other types of dumplings I used to make a lot but these fara (goojha) brought many memories along and that made the meal even more special.

The urad daal and rice combination is softer and milder in spice level. I used just a hint of garam masala and the hing flavor combines very well with urad daal, making it tastier and easier for the tummy as well. I like the urad one more but Arvind likes the chana dal one. Tell me which one you'd like to have ....

PS : In our home it is called goojha as it is shaped like a gujhia. I have seen many people in banaras call it fara and bengali friends and a few bihari friends call it peetha. Now this anonymous reader has come up with another name, gointha. It was great to know this name and hilarious too, as gointha is a name for cow dung cakes used as fuel in the rural areas. They are made into the same shape and may be the name is inspired by that.

What's in a name when the end product is so yummy. You make it for a week and enjoy it any way you like Warm it with a sprinkling of water in microwave and enjoy it steamed for dinner with a soup may be, or fry them for a snack.

A blogger friend says that the best way to learn is to share your knowledge. I experienced it when I shared the recipe of patode. I knew only about the gujrati patra till now and after posting the recipe I came to know about the konkani and mangalorian pathrode as well. Many of your comments indicated that there are so many versions of this recipe and it is so heart warming to see this diversity with the same ingredients. I am sure that I will be knowing many more types of peethe too now, I know there is a different version in almost every state of India. But I have known only about the bengali peethey so far. What about your kind of peethey or any such dumpling ?? Had you known this Fara or goojha? Or you also know it as pitha or peetha?

Come on tell me. Iwelcome your links too if you have posted the recipe already on your blogs.

PS once more : I made these fara or pitha again for a get together ta home and decided to click more pictures. Uploading this post with a few better pictures so the process and the texture of this goojha of my home town is more understandable to someone clueless about pitha, or fara, or goojha or goitha :-)

khajur / thekua

Thekua is a Bihari deep fried cookie that has spread to eastern UP too. And since I have lived in Banaras and have spent some time in Jharkhand too, I can say it with some authority that no one makes better thekua than Biharis. Many Banarasi families also make great thekua but the crumbly texture is what every Bihari cook excels in achieving. Others make it like a cookie.

I used to make thekua too but that wasn't something that you would remember for long. It was like any other deep fried pastry that tastes sweet and good. But after spending a few years in Jharkhand when I tasted the thekua that used to be made at Chhath (a festival worshiping Sun God) I knew I had to learn it from my neighbors. There is a technique of making thekua that I didn't know till then.

The perfect thekua, often called as khajoor should be cracked at the margins, crisp on the outside and softer and crumbly inside. The sugar crystals caramelize on the outside giving it a nice sheen. Arvind used to like it so much that I had to learn to make this desi cookie.

Some people make it with all purpose flour or maida but I prefer making it with whole wheat flour and desi ghee. It is so much more tasty this way, all the old fashined cooks make their thekua with whole wheta flour and ghee, some of them even use jaggery instead of sugar. I will share the jaggery thekua too sometime soon.

This time I made a fried version as well as a baked version. The deep fried one was crisp and perfect but the baked one was a bit chewy but I liked it as the taste was the same (for almost 80% less ghee than the fried version).

The fried ones keep well in an airtight container for about a month but the baked ones become harder after 2 weeks. So consume the the baked thekua within 2 weeks at the most.

you need just a few ingredients for this.....

whole wheat flour or atta 500 gm
ghee 100 gm for rubbing (shortening)
desiccated coconut or grated dried coconut 1 cup
sugar 1 cup
milk about 1.5 cup
more ghee for deep frying

to proceed .....

Follow the instructions carefully about kneading the dough. It is crucial in making of the perfect textured thekua. 

Mix the first four ingredients well, rubbing it between your fingers so that it resembles like fine breadcrumbs.

Heat ghee for frying in a wide kadhai or pan.

Now scoop out a part of the mixture (enough to make a batch of 8-10 thekuas) and sprinkle milk on it and mix so that it starts binding when pressed in your fist. It should not become like a dough, just enough moist to make marble sized balls from the mixture. This allows cracking of the surface, making crisp thekua or khajurs when deep fired at low temperature.

Now flatten each ball with your palms and press with a fork twice at right angles to make a mesh design. There is a traditional wooden stamp to carve designs on thekuas but I don't have them.

Drop this first batch of thekuas in the medium hot ghee and fry on lowest flame turning in between to allow even browning. A nice aroma comes when it gets cooked and also the cracks appear on the surface.

It takes about 20 minutes for one batch if you have made small thekuas, the cooking time depends on how big and thick the thekuas are. Making them smaller is better if thekua is new for you. The cooked thekuas remain a bit spongy to touch but get firm once cold.

Drain from ghee and let it cool. Repeat with the mixture for another batch till you make all of them. Cool and keep in an airtight container.

These are the fried thekuas..

For the baked version I arranged the shaped thekuas on a ceramic plate smeared with ghee and baked in the grill option of my microwave for 30 minutes on one side and the 20 minutes on the other side Timing can be adjusted according to the thickness of khajoors.

Here are the baked thekuas..

One thing to note, the UP version of thekua has become more rich with lot of nuts added but real thekua only has coconut bits. The UP version is often called as Khajur and some people make the khajur in elongated shape just like dates (khajur or chhuara) with a stuffing of coconut and raisins in it. I will try and share that version too some day.

The thekua or khajur used to be the best food for journey in older days. People used to carry dabbas of thekua and laal mirch ka bharva achar for long journeys and this used to become a snack or meal as and when required. Imagine the sweet thekua smeared with laal mirch ka achar, it was a deadly combination. Just like matthi and aam ka achar, that was another classic journey food.

People used to add loads of nuts and raisins to the thekua when it was made for journeys. I now understand it was a way to pack nourishment in small condensed doses.

Granola bars of the older times these thekua would have been...