Atta Halwa

When I was a kid, my neighbors who are originally from North India, would make this dessert for festivals or as an offering to God during puja. I never knew the name of the dish, but this dish had captured my heart. Recently my mom mentioned about a brown sheera that she had eaten during a community Ganesh Chaturthi festival and I was overcome with nostalgia. In my attempt to find the name of the dish, I searched the internet and found recipes for a brown sheera called "Atta Halwa". I gave it a shot and the result - I rediscovered a long forgotten sweet from my childhood.

Atta Halwa or Wheat Halwa or Brown Sheera is a dessert that just melts in your mouth. Here is the recipe I found on the internet.

Recipe: 

Ingredients:

Ghee - 0.5 cup

Wheat Flour (Atta) - 1 cup

Sugar - 1 cup

Water - 2 cup

Dry Fruits (Cashew and Almonds) - 5 each (sliced)

Preparation:

1.) In a pan, heat ghee and add the dry fruits to it. Once the dry fruit turns slightly brown, add the atta and let it cook until it turns brown color.

2.) Meanwhile in another vessel, take water and sugar and heat it till it bubbles (boils). We are not making sugar syrup, so make sure you switch off the gas once the sugar water bubbles.

3.) Once the atta mixture turns brown and starts to ooze a bit of ghee, add this hot bubbling water slowly. Mix well so that there are no lumps formed.

Atta Halwa is ready to be served hot!

Banana Mulka

Mulka is popular dish in Konkan cuisine. Its traditionally made with Jackfruit, but you can also use Banana to make this yummy dessert. This is usually prepared during Ganesh Chaturthi and is also called Banana Modak. It looks like a fritter and is a healthy snack for kids. Here is the recipe from my mom in law and I hope you enjoy making this awesome dessert.

 

Recipe: 

Ingredients:

Banana - 3

Grated coconut - 1/2 cup

Jaggery - 1 small ball (or a small cup)

Salt - 0.5 tsp

Semolina (Sooji/Rava) - 1 cup (or as much required to thicken the batter)

Oil for deep frying

Preparation:

1.) Mash some banana in a bowl and mix it with grated coconut, crushed jaggery and salt. Make it into a fine paste by mixing well with hand.

2.) Next add rava to the above mix and mix well till it thickens.

3.) Heat oil for deep frying. Then take small portions of the batter and drop it in hot oil. Cook till they turn brown.

Hot hot Banana Mulka is ready to be served.

KhatKhata

 Khatkhata is a Maharastrian specialty made from 21 or more vegetables. This curry is made on the first day of Ganesh Chaturthi and is very nutritious and healthy. My mom in law shared this recipe with me and we love it so much that its now made frequently at home. My kid especially loves eating corn cobs from the curry. Here goes the recipe for this amazing dish.

Recipe: 

Ingredients:

Green Chilies - 7

Fresh Coriander Leaves - 1 small cup

Toor Dal - 3 tsp or 1/2 vati*

Peanuts - 3 tsp

Grated Coconut - 1 small cup

Tamarind - a small marble sized ball

Salt - to taste

Oil - 1 tsp

Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp

Hing - pinch

Vegetables: Take 21 or more vegetables of your choice. Take small portion for each vegetable.

Slow Cooking Vegetables: To be Pressure cooked

Raw Banana

Raw Papaya

Elephant Yam (Suran)

Chayote Squash

Ivy Gourd (Tindora)

Snake Gourd (Padwal)

Round Cucumber (Dosakai)

Turnip 

Radish (Mooli)

Sweet Potato

Corn

Carrot

Green Peas (or black dry peas)

Cluster Beans (Chitmitki)

Taro Root (Arbi)

Fast Cooking Vegetables: To be boiled in vessel separately so that they don't get mashed in the pressure cooker.

Drumstick

Red Pumpkin

Brinjal (White, purple, long green or any variety or a combination)

Ridge Gourd (Ghosale)

Bottle Gourd (Dudhi)

Green Beans

Cucumber

Potato

Green Tomato (Optional)

Preparation:

1.) Take toor dal, peanuts, the slow cooking vegetables and water and pressure cook them.

2.) Heat oil in a vessel, add mustard seeds and let it splutter. Add hing to this and the fast cooking vegetables and water and cover it with lid to boil them.

3.) After it boils, add the pressure cooked vegetables to it.

4.) In a mixer, take some coconut, tamarind, green chilies, coriander leaves, salt and water and grind it into a smooth paste.

5.) Put this paste in the vegetable mix and let it boil well.

Khatkhata is ready to be served with rice.

*vati = idli vati

Kaccha Chivda

Recipe: 

Ingredients:

Nylon Poha (Preferrable)/ Thin Poha - 1.25 lb
Oil - 6 tsp
Peanut - 0.5 cup
Green Chilly - 2 (slit and chopped big)
Curry Leaves - 2 sprigs (chopped)
Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp
Cumin Seeds - 3 tsp
Salt - as per taste
Sugar - 1 tsp
Putani (Roasted Chana Dal) - 0.5 small cup*

Preparation:

1. Heat oil in a pan.
2. Add the peanuts and let it fry a bit.
3. Add the green chillies and curry leaves and switch off the gas and keep it aside.
4. Add the turmeric powder to the above mix.
5. Next take jira, salt and sugar in a mixer and grind it to a powder. Keep it aside.
6. Next take putani in a mixer and grind it to a fine powder.
7. Mix the jira powder and putani powder together.
8. In a separate pan, take poha and fry it for a few seconds.
9. Once done, put the poha and the ground powder mix to the peanut mix and put it back on stove.
10. Carefully mix it so that the flavors spread evenly and also do it gently so that the poha does not break.

Kaccha Chivda is ready. Once it cools down, you can store it in the jars and they last for weeks.

*small cup = idli vati

Puran Poli

Puran Poli, a sweet roti is generally prepared during festivals in many Indian households. The preparation process involves stuffing a sweet filling in the dough and then rolling it like a roti . It is served hot with lots of ghee or milk. When I was a kid, my mom used to engage me in the preparation process of this dessert and the whole exercise has made me grow very fond of this great dish. Recently, we tried this for the first time on our own and I must say, the results were quite amazing. Here's my mom's recipe for this lovely dish.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

For Dough:

Maida (All purpose flour) - 1 cup

Wheat Flour - 1/4 cup

Salt - to taste

Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp

Water - as needed to knead

Oil - 1 cup

For Puran (sweet filling):

Chana Dal - 1 cup

Toor Dal - 1/8 cup

Water - as required for boiling

Jaggery - 6 cubes

Cardamom  - 4 (Powdered)

Preparation:

1. Knead maida, wheat flour, turmeric powder, oil, salt and water into a dough.

2. Put the dough in a bowl containing 1 cup of oil and keep it aside. This extra oil will be used later when we are making the dough balls stuffed with sweet filling. It also helps in making the puran polis soft.

3. Pressure cook the chana dal and toor dal for 3 whistles. The boiled mix should be mashy.

4. Remove the excess water and you can use it to make saar or discard it.

5. Add jaggery and powdered cardamom to the boiled dal mix and stir it till it becomes thick. Once it cools down, gring this so that it becomes a smooth paste.

6. Make small round balls and keep aside. This is the filling that we stuff in the dough, also known as puran.

7. Now comes the part where we stuff this in the dough. Apply oil from the bowl to your palm, spread a small piece of dough on your palm so that it completely covers the center of your palm. Then take the chana dal ball (sweet filling) and place it in the center. Next wrap the dough around this ball completely so that we don't see a trace of the filling. 

7. Coat some maida to this stuffed dough and roll it into a round roti shape. Its best to cover the rolling board with plastic to prevent sticking while rolling and its also helps with the cleaning process for the board.

8. Apply a bit of oil to a pan and to both sides of the rolled polis and fry these on both sides.

Serve it hot with ghee. 

Its always best to make less of the dough and more of the filling because we can make another sweet dish called Sukrondo with the leftover filling.