Pedhyachi Poli (stuffed Pedha Paratha)

Whenever good thing happens in our life like promotion, school-college results or birth of baby, we distribute pedha. Easy and quick prasad for God is also Pedha. Everyone does the same. So on result day or on some festival day my fridge is loaded with pedha. We can not eat so much pedha at a time. So I make 'Pedhyachi Poli', Paratha stuffed with crushed Pedha. It tastes awesome.

Ingredients

Pedha - 8-10

Whole wheat flour - 1 cup

Salt - a pinch

Pure Ghee.

Procedure

Crush all pedhas very finely. Knead a soft dough from whole wheat flour and salt for the cover. Make small balls of the dough. Roll out the dough like a puri. Then stuff it with 2 table spoon of crushed pedha. Close the ends of the puri at the center and make a ball. Seal it nicely so that stuffing doesn’t come out while rolling. Now roll this stuffed ball into flat paratha. Heat griddle (Tava), fry Paratha using a ghee, until both sides are golden brown. Pedhyachi Poli is ready.

 
 
It goes to,
Jagruti's 'CELEBRATES SWEETS- PEDHA' initiated by Nivedita's kitchen

Priti's 'FESTIVE FOOD - RAKHI'
 

And
 
PJ's 'Scrumptious Delights From Leftovers' event

Pedha....Festival season started

Shravan Month has already started. It's a month of different festivals. So again the month of foodies…specially for sweet lovers. I am starting my first shravan special recipe with Pedha. When I read about Jagruti's Pedha event, I thought I'll try pedha this time. For Indian Cooking Challenge we prepared 'Khoya' at home so thought can make pedha from scratch. Thanks to Srivalli of ICC :)

Ingredients


Khoya - 1 cup

Powdered Sugar - 1/4 cup

Cardamom Powder - 1/2 teaspoon

Saffron strands - 1/8 teaspoon

Chironji for decoration


Procedure

Take a heavy bottom kadai and mix khoya and powdered sugar into it. Cook this mixture on slow flame. Keep stirring continuously. After 8-10 minutes when sugar completely dissolved and the mixture became little thick, remove from the flame. (in this procedure my mixture has cooked little more, so the colour of pedha is on darker side) . Add cardamom powder and saffron strands. Mix well. Allow it to cool. Then make very small balls. Press very lightly with your palm. At the centre put one chironji and fix it. Sweet Pedhas are ready to offer 'God'.


This goes to,

Jagruti's  'CELEBRATES SWEETS- PEDHA' initiated by Nivedita's kitchen

&

Priti's 'FESTIVE FOOD - RAKHI'

Gulab Jamun

Wow It's really fun making Gulab Jamun from scratch. It's my first recipe for Indian cooking Challenge. I tried Gulab Jamun 2-3 times before this. But the khoya was readymade. It was unsuccessful attempts. This time it really went nice and soft. I tried Indo's method for making Khova and Alka's method for Sugar syrup.

Ingredients

For Khova

Milk - 1 liter

For Jamun

Khoya - 1 cup

All purpose flour - 2 teaspoons

Cornflour - 1 teaspoon

Crushed green cardamom - 1-2

Oil for shallow frying

For Sugar Syrup

Sugar- 400 Gms

Cardamom pods - 2-3

milk - One spoon

Few threads of saffron (optional)

2-3 drops of rosewater(optional but highly recommended)

Procedure

For Khova

Start out by setting the milk to boil in a heavy bottomed wide mouthed pan.

Keep stirring as the milk reduces to avoid milk getting burnt - half way stage.

Continue stirring, takes atleast 1 hour - almost done. Stop the heat when the milk solids come together as a mass - khova ready.

For Sugar Syrup

Mix about 500 gms 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.

For Jamun

Mix all the ingredients in a wide mixing bowl until soft textured dough is obtained (keep mixing until it is really soft). Make very small sized balls (bit larger than pebbles) as they swell up after frying and soaking in syrup. Make sure that the surface of dough balls is really smooth without any cracks. 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 gulab jamuns 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 gulab jamun while making balls, that way the core of gulab jamun is not left uncooked . Fry one or 2 gulab jamuns 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 gulab jamun. 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. You can eat hot Gulab Jamun as it is or with one scoop of Vanilla Icecream:)