Hayagriva ( a lentil based sweet )

This is an Indian sweet dish made up of cooked bengal gram dal, jaggery, freshly grated coconut and poppy seeds. It is very popular in the south of India especially in Mantralayam.

I love making this sweet as it is very delicious, nutritious ( when was the last time you heard of a sweet dish being nutritious too !) and very quick and easy to make. Hayagriva is very similar to the puran in Puran Poli / Holige .

Some people like their Hayagriva to be a little runny in consistency. However, I like mine in a soft, semi solid state. This depends on personal preference, so if you like it a little more runny do not evaporate a lot of the moisture out during the cooking process. Also when cooking the channa dal / split bengal gram dal , some opt to cook it in the pressure cooker. I, personally, prefer the stove top method - cook it in a saucepan with lots of water - as this allows me to control the texture of the cooked dal. I like my dal to maintain its shape and integrity and putting it in a pressure cooker can be a hit or miss in that. Again there is no hard and fast rule here, as this is not going to change the taste of the dish, just the visual appeal.



Hayagriva

Puran Poli

Puran Poli is poli (tortilla-like flatbread ) stuffed with puran ( channa dal and jaggery mixture).This is made during festivals and is a favorite amongst many. It is also called Holige or Obbattu in Karnataka. My mom makes these at home and that is where I learnt how to make these polis.

The other day it was Varalakshmi Vratham, so while my mother-in-law took care of all the puja, I took care of all the cooking. One of the dishes to be made was puran poli. Honestly, I could not wait to make this, but the process of resting the dough and pressure cooking the dal ensured that it was the last dish to be made. The puran polis came out great, soft, moist and filled with a lot of puran. I am not very fond of the ultra thin and dry polis that requires you to have a glass of water nearby whenever you are eating one. I love my polis to be plump with puran, soft, moist and fragrant with the smell of cardamom and nutmeg and this recipe produces such a poli.

They are actually quite easy to make the trick is to have a very soft dough. If you make the regular roti / paratha dough, it will be very difficult to roll, your puran poli will end up as a disaster during rolling. Also ensure that you thicken the channa dal and jaggery / gur mixture by evaporating as much water as possible without burning it. Remember that the puran will thicken as it cools down, thick enough to roll out in soft round balls.

I do apologise for the lack of photos of the finished product, you see my hungry hubby was glaring at me for cooling all the hot rotis while I snapped photos.


Puran Poli

Aaji's Rava Ladoos ( Semolina Sweets )

My Grandmother makes the best Rava Ladoos ever. In India we make ladoos for festivals or any celebratory function at home. There are so many kinds of ladoos, some of the most prominent ones are the quintessential besan ladoo, the revered boondi ladoo and the festive rava ladoo.

I love them all but the rava ladoo holds a special place in my heart because this recipe has been passed down from my grandma to my amma and now to me. When we were small we spent three year at my grandparents house. This time with them made us more Indian then we ever were -  we learnt the language, the customs, the food and the festivals and also we got to meet most of our extended family. Grandma made sure that all festivals were celebrated properly and she and my aunties made all the foods and sweets.

Rava ladoo is her speciality, she makes the best ladoos I have ever had. They are moist and fragrant and they melt in your mouth. Her rava ladoos are so addictive that it is difficult to stop at just one. I love the contrast of textures offered in the slightly chewy coconut, plump raisins and nutty cashew nuts.

So if you are looking for the best tasting, moist and fragrant ladoos then this is your recipe. Your teeth will thank you as you will not have to test their strength while biting into them.


Rava Ladoo

Strawberry Shortcake

I live for desserts. Whenever we go to any new restaurant the first thing I do is to check out their dessert menu, and then I plan my meal accordingly. A while back we went to Clyde's of Reston at Reston Town Center. I have always passed that restaurant but never been inside. For some reason it always seemed full and overflowing with happy diners. But that one day as we were sitting in front of the water fountain watching all the children play we had a hankering for something sweet. We had already had a heavy brunch but that was four hours ago and it was too late for lunchtime and too early for dinner time, so we decided to get some desserts. We had two choices, the Ben & Jerry's ice cream parlor down the street or Clyde's just across the street. Since we had never been to Clyde's we decided to try it out.

Their dessert menu is sumptuous to say the least and they had Strawberry Shortcake as one of the desserts on their menu. We all ordered different desserts to try out a wide range, but we all agreed that the strawberry shortcake was the best. After a while, much to my dismay, they removed it from their menu. So now it was left up to me to re-create that wonderful dessert at home.

I tried several recipes and while good, they were still not as good as Clyde's till I got Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home to Yours. She had a recipe for Tender Shortcakes and my oh my these shortcakes were the most tender, moist and flavorful ever. I had finally found my shortcake recipe. I love her book , she has so many great recipes in it. This is one of my go to books for desserts. She has a wide range of breakfast sweets , yummy cookies, beautiful cakes, pies, tarts and all other kinds of desserts. Some of her desserts have a little bit of french influence in them. This might be because she lives part of the year in Paris hobnobbing with some of the famous pastry chefs. Yes, I envy her. I mean she does everything I dream of doing, write cookbooks, live in Paris and get to be friends with Pierre Herme !

Anyway, back to the Shortcake, it was the best. The biscuit when baked looked just like a photo out of a professional cookbook. The color was perfect golden brown and the tops were all cracked and crumbly just as the shortcake should be. One bite into it and it dissolves on the tongue. It is also too beautiful to look, the golden base holding the juicy, scarlet strawberries covered with the snow white of the cream and topped with the golden domes of the biscuit.

When buying strawberries, buy them from a farmer's market instead of your local grocery chain. The difference in taste is huge. The strawberries at the farmer's market are sweet with a hint of tartness and the ones at the grocery store are tart with a barely discernible hint of sweetness.

 

Sheera

It was Purnima ( the day of the full moon ) last week and we made sheera. I love this sheera recipe, even though it is very rich in calories it tastes divine.

In India we make this sheera for a special puja called Sathyanarayan puja. This puja is performed to mark any major occasion like marriage, birth of child, purchase of a new car or new house. However due to its popular nature this sheera is also made in maharashtrian homes for evening snack times. The quantity of ghee is reduced and the milk is increased in such cases.

In maharashtra we use the 'savva praman' ie measurements of 1 1/4 cup of everything -  so sugar is 1 1/4 cup, rava is 1 1/4 cup, ghee is 1 1/4 cup and milk is 1 1/4 cup.This measurement is special for the sathyanarayan puja only. Some also use one mashed up banana *, and that tastes quite good actually, but since I did not have a banana that day I made it without that. Now this is the maharashtrian way, in other parts of India they do not follow this recipe, they use varied quantities of the various ingredients - some use twice the amount of milk to rava and some substitute the milk for water. In this recipe I did decrease the quantity of sugar and ghee a bit.

This recipe produces the best tasting sheera . It reminds me of my grandma's house and all the special occasions. If you are looking for a full flavored, non-mushy, open grained sheera than this is your recipe. The end result was this soft, fragrant sheera that will dissolve on your tongue once you put it in your mouth. Do try it and see, you will be pleased with the results. However, do remember to have it in small quantities due to its high calorie content.