As you know, this is actually an ancient dish! I vaguely remember that my ajji, i.e.your thatha's mother, used to make tiny unDes specially for me and place one in each of my three year old tiny hands, since they say I used to ask for two pieces every time!
The procedure is very simple and the ingredients are almost always readily available on the South Indian kitchen shelves. That is the reason the ladies those days prepared this in no time if the guests were to arrive within a short notice.
So, here are the ingredients:
Chiroti Rava 1 cup
Sugar 1/2 cup
Grated coconut 1/2 cup
Ghee 2-3 table spoons
Water Enough to cover sugar in the kaDai
Cardamom powder 1/4 teaspoon
Cashew nut pieces 1-2 tablespoons
Raisins 1-2 tablespoons
Optional:
How to proceed:
Take about a teaspoon of ghee in the kaDai and fry cashew nuts till golden brown and raisins till they bloat. Transfer them to a small bowl.
Take the remaining ghee in the kaDai and when it melts add both the rava and grated coconut and roast till the rava turns golden brown and the rava together with coconut give a pleasant aroma. Transfer the contents to the same bowl.
Next take sugar in the kaDai, add water just enough to cover it, and bring to boil till you notice foaming of the syrrup. Turn off the burner. Add cardamom powder, mix well and then transfer the contents of the bowl to the kaDai and mix well. When the mixture is cool enough for you to handle, take small portions and make balls. Store in an airtight container. Can stay fresh for about a week.
From this amount you can make about 10 balls. Enjoy!
This is a protein rich, easy to make, delicious sweet dish of Karnataka. Needs no pre-planning since the ingredients are mostly readily available in our kitchens. Usually made during festivals, but it is quite rare. Never to be found in restaurants!
There is an interesting mythological story behind this dish. The name Hayagriva comes after the God Hayagriva, a horse headed avatar of God Vishnu. Haya-greeva, (horse-neck) also known as Haya-vadana (horse-face) is worshiped as a God of knowledge and wisdom. The story goes that the Saint-composer Sri Vadirajaru used to offer this sweet daily to Vishnu by keeping it on his head and Vishnu used to come in the form of a beautiful white horse and consumed the offering !
This is how you can make it:
Ingredients:
Bengal gram dal 1 cup
Water 2-3cups
Jaggery 3/4 to 1 cup (Powdered)
Ghee 1-2 teaspoons
Cashew nut pieces 1 table spoon
Raisins 1 table spoon
Almond pieces 1 table spoon
Dry coconut pieces 1 table spoon (optional)
Poppy seeds 1 teaspoon
Cardamom 4-5 (powdered)
Procedure:
Take dal and 2 cups of water in a pressure cooker/pressure pan and cook till dal is very soft. It will be good if the dal retains its shape and so take care that the dal is not overcooked. Now add jaggery, and a little more water and bring the mixture to boil. Boil for about 4-5 minutes and turn off the stove when the mixture is still liquidy. Because on cooling it becomes thick. Now add add ghee and cardamom and mix well.
Fry cashew, almond and coconut pieces and raisins in ghee. Dry roast poppy seeds. Garnish the dish with these.
Tastes better after 4-5 hours. You can warm and serve. This quantity
serves about 4. Can be served along with the main menu or had just as a sweet dish anytime.
This is a very simple and tasty dish which my daughters love. Other than the taste, its crispiness is one thing which makes people love it. Preparing is also quite simple and in spite of that I have not come across this item in any sweet meat stalls. You can try this.
Ingredients:
For the flour:
Maida 1 cup
Chiroti ravae/samolina 1 tablespoon
Salt 1 pinch
Butter/Refined oil 1 table spoon
Water About half a cup
Refined oil 2 cups, for frying
Pure ghee 1 teaspoon (add to oil while frying)
For the syrup:
Sugar 1 cup
Water About 1/4 cup
Cardamom powder 1/4 treaspoon
Method:
For the flour: Mix well maida, chiroti ravae, salt and butter in a bowl. Add water little by little and knead till you get a consistency which is almost like the flour you knead for pooris. What I mean is, it should be a bit hard, and not like that you knead for rotis or parathas. Smear with oil or cover with damp cloth and and keep aside for about half an hour.
For the syrup: Take sugar in a shallow container. Add water just to cover the sugar and bring it to boil. Boil till you get a two or three string consistency. Add cardamom powder and mix.
Next step:
Now, take small balls of the flour and knead into thin pooris. It is a good idea to smear the rolling board and the pin with a little oil before rolling so that the flour doesn't get stuck to the board or the pin. (You can even roll a big poori and cut it to any shape by pressing on it a sharp edged cup or the lid of small box). Take oil in a pan and deep fry these pooris on a medium heat till golden brown. Take them out into a plate.
Now start frying the next batch of pooris. In the meanwhile, dip all the already fried pooris in the syrup and take them out one by one with a tongs and arrange separately on a plate so they don't stick to one another. Leave them to dry.
Repeat the process till flour gets over. When dry store in air tight boxes.
From one cup of flour, you can make about 20-25 badam poories of about 1-2 inch diameter each.
The badam pooris get a glazed finish and remain crisp for days provided the syrup is of proper consistency.
As many of you might know, this is a very popular dish. Usually it is an important item of a festival menu. Easy to make this, but may be a bit time consuming. But it doesn't require you be around all the time, provided you have a big and thick bottomed pan to cook it. It might take about half an hour for the whole process.
Usually they use Basmati rice for this, but I use Jeerige saNNa (Jeera rice), which is very small in size and has the same flavour as Basmati.
Ingredients:
Jeera rice 1 fistful
Thick milk 1 1/2 litre
Sugar 2-3 tablespoons
Saffron About 10 strands
Almond slivered and roasted 2 tablespoons
Pure ghee 1 teaspoon
Procedure:
Soak saffron in about a tablespoon of hot milk.
Wash rice. Take milk in a large thick bottomed pan (to prevent milk from overflowing while boiling), When it starts boiling, add rice. Cook on a slow flame.
During the process, keep scraping out the cream that gets collected around the vessel, and put it back to the contents. Cook till the contents reduce to 1/3 the volume, stirring in between taking care that it does not get burnt at the bottom. Add sugar. I add very less sugar, i.e about 2 tablespoons. Cook for one more minute. Add ghee. Add in the soaked saffron along with the milk and mix well. Transfer the contents to a bowl. Garnish with almond pieces. If you like you can add cashew nuts and raisins also.
You can make changes as per your convenience. To reduce the cooking time, you pressure cook the rice in milk, and add 1/3 of a tin of condensed milk and boil it. Here you need not add sugar. Or, after pressure cooking you can add milk powder and boil it. Here you need to add sugar.
And if you want the payasa to be rich and thick, you can add powdered almonds.
I find that the payasa tastes better if cooled and as it gets older :)
Serves 4-6 or more, depending upon whether you serve it with a heavy/light lunch/dinner !
Here comes the Holige, ajji's speciality and her master piece! This is prepared mostly during big festivals, but for ajji the arrival of any guest or demand by grand children or friends itself is a festival ! And so, in spite of it being a time consuming and an elaborate process, how many lakhs of Holiges ajji has rolled so far, I cant guess!
I am not sure whether you really try your hand at this. But assuming that you prepare this one fine day (since you also like it a lot), I am posting this recipe. If you dont have time, you can prepare this in installments too, i.e., prepare the stuffing the previous day and roll the holiges the next day. You can even store different quantities of stuffing in different containers in the freezer, and use it many times- whenever you feel like. If the stuffing is ready, it is just like rolling stuffed parathas. But this is a bit more delicate since it is extremely thin unlike parathas, and should be handled carefully. But practice makes you roll them perfectly. It is quite healthy also since the main ingredient is the togari bele/tur dal.
As you know, ajji makes one of the finest holiges of the world. She has treated hundreds of friends and relatives with these. And this Vijayadashami, we were with ajji and thatha in Mysore and there were holiges getting ready for the festival ! I caught the process on my camera. And we all hogged them too with... yes, with pure home made ghee! The picture above shows it! Some of us had them with just ghee, and others with ghee, hot milk and also Elakki baLe haNNu (the special variety of banana, available in Mysore). As you know eating holiges with banana is a speciality of thatha's family. Previously they used Rasa baLe, a very special variety of bananas, but unfortunately it has become very very rare to find them nowadays.
To make holiges you have to have the kaNika (the flour) and the hoorNa(the stuffing).
And ajji used:
For hoorNa:
Togari beLe/toovar dal 1 cup
Jaggery syrrup 1 cup (1 string consistency)
Water 1 cup
Cardomom powder 1/2 teaspoon
Clove powder 1/4 teaspoon
Jaikai Nut/meg powder 2 pinches
Jaipatre/Mace powder 1 pinch
Coconut grated 1/4 cup
Procedure:
Pressure cook dal with water till done. Cool to room temperature.
Then first run grated coconut in the mixer to a fine powder. (The coconut taken out from the freezer and thawed just till it becomes powdery, gets ground to a fine powder easily). Now add cooked dal, jaggery syrrup and run the mixer. Transfer the contents into a microwavable bowl and microwave for for about 10 to 15 minutes, stirring in between. The consistency of the product should be that of the chappathi flour you knead for making chapathis and so, you have to remove this from the microwave when it is still a little softer than the chapati flour. On cooling you will get the proper consistency. Now add all the remaining spices and mix thoroughly with hand.
For kaNika:
Wheat flour 1 1/4 cup finely sieved
Maida 1/4 cup
Turmeric powder 1 pinch
Refined oil 1 tablespoon
Water about 1/4 cup
Procedure:
Take all the ingredients except water in a bowl. Adding water little by little, knead to get a consistency like that of chapati flour. Smear with 1 teaspoon of oil and leave for some time. This process of adding 1 teaspoon of oil and kneading again and again should be done 5 or 6 times in a gap of at least 4 or 5 hours. The flour becomes very very soft and rubbery.
It is important that the consistencies of both kaNika and hoorNa should be almost the same so that after stuffing and while rolling, it doesn't get torn. If you take a lemon sized ball of hoorNa, it is enough if you take half the size of kaNika. KaNika is a thin covering on the hoorNa, that is all.
Now, see the magic of 84 year young hands in action.....stuffing and then rolling !
After rolling, spread about half a teaspoon of oil on the top of it and transfer it on the tava so that the oiled surface touches the tava. Spread half a tea spoon oil on the other side too.
This is how it looks immediately after transferring on to the tava.
Roast on a medium heat till you get light brown colour as you find in the picture. The stuffing is already cooked, and the covering is very thin and so there is no need to cook it for a longer time or till fully brown. If you take it out soon, the holige remains very soft.
You can see the holige bloated in this picture. If it bloats, the holiges are extra soft. It is okay even if it doesnt bloat. You can take it out from the tava, once you get such dark marks on them.
Stuffing and rolling should be such that on rolling the stuffing is uniformly spread till along the circumference or else the edges become hard and it is not a nice feeling while eating. Again, this can be attained with a little bit of practice or if you take interest in the procedure.
Gudpavte Unde is a healthy snack. I didn’t like it much as a small girl. But now I like it.
The size of each ball is the same as that we take to make one plain chapathi. When I mentioned it once when you were little girls, you preferred to eat one UnDe in place of one chapathi arguing that it is all the same. We, elders had a hearty laugh and I tried hard to convice you that these unDes are good as evening snacks or to have between two meals and that you MUST have chapathi with vegetables for breakfast/lunch/dinner.
This unDe can act as an Indian `Energy bar’ which Poorvi keeps mentioning. But this is best preserved in the fridge unlike the energy bars. You can try making this:
Ingredients: 1 cup godhi hittu (atta) 1 or 2 tbspoons of ghee 1/3 cup bella (jaggery) 1/3 cup onakobri thuri 1 tablespoon roasted kari eLLu (gingili seeds) ¼ teaspoon elakki pudi (cardamom powder) 1 table spoon each of godambi pieces and drakshi (cashew and raisins) fried in a teaspoon of ghee.
Procedure:
You can first microwave atta for one or two minutes (to save time and labour) taking care that it doesn’t get burnt. Then fry this in a kadai with a tablespoon of ghee till it is light brown colour and gives good aroma. Then you Transfer this to a bowl.
Fry cashew and raisins in a teaspoon of ghee. Dry roast eLLu. Dry roast grated coconut and powder it by running in a mixer.
Now prepare the jaggery syrup. First put jaggery in a vessel, add enough water to cover it. When the jaggery melts, strain to remove any sand particles. Take the syrup in the kadai and bring it to boil. Add cardamom powder and then add fried atta, coconut powder and mix well till it becomes one whole lump. Remove from fire and add cashew, raisins, eLLu and allow it to cool. When the temperature of the dough is comfortable for you to handle, make small balls and store in a box. It stays at room temperature for two or three days, but if you want to preserve it, better refrigerate.
One thing about the quantity of jiggery. I don’t like if any item is very sweet. So the sweetness in my preparations is a bit below the standard sweetness. After you make once, you can change the quantity as per your requirement.
You can prepare 10 balls (medium lemon sized) from one cup of atta.
