Okkarai

This sweet was not at all familiar to me until my hubby told me that this is one of his favourite sweet.
I tried a couple of times with different methods and finally got this sweet right by this method. I'm really really happy that i got it right after some tries and also my hubby was totally happy to have this sweet :).

Ingredients
1 cup Channa Dal (Kadalai paruppu)
1 1/4 cup Jaggery 
2-3 tablespoons of Ghee
8-10 Cashews
A pinch of Cardamom powder

Method

• Roast the cashews in a teaspoon of ghee and set aside.
• Soak channa dal in water for about 3-4 hours.
• Drain the water and coarsely grind it. (Do not grind into smooth paste).
• Grease the pan with a teaspoon of ghee and add the coarsely grind channa dal and allow it to steam each side for about 5 mins in low flame. (As shown in pic1).

Pic 1

•  Allow it to cool and shred (As shown in Pic2).

Pic 2

• Again powder the shredded Channa dal.
• In a separate pan add the powdered Jaggery with a spoon of water and allow it to turn to a syrup consistency.
• Filter the impurities and again boil the Jaggery syrup.
• The syrup should reach to a thin string consistency.
• (String consistency is nothing but when you touch the Jaggery syrup between the thumb and index finger you will notice that the syrup will form a thin string).
• For attaining the one string consistency it doesn't take much time.
• Add the Channa dal powder to the syrup and also the roasted cashews and 1 tablespoon of ghee. Stir well.
• In low flame stir the channa dal mixture for about 12-15 mins and finally add the Cardamon powder when it reaches to puttu consistency.
• Okkarai is ready to be served.

A closer look of okkarai 

Note
The general ratio for Okkarai is 1:1 that is one cup of channa dal and one cup of jaggery but i felt the sweetness is low so added extra, if you want less sweet you can go with 1:1.




  

Rava Laddu

I got this recipe from one of my relatives, it doesn't take more than 30 mins to do this laddus, very very easy to prepare and everyone's fav too. Many of us add coconut flakes and saffron. Mostly for these laddus they cook rava for a very long time, which actually changes color. I was so conscious about the color, so i carefully made this laddus with few changes. To get a crunchy feeling in-between your bite you can add Cashews and raisins. Adding Coconut or milk will reduce the shelf life of this rava laddu, otherwise it can be stored up to 10-12 days.

Ingredients

2 cups of Rava/Semolina/Sooji

1 Cup Powdered Sugar

 1/4 teaspoon Cardamon powder

1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon Ghee (Clarified Butter)

Method

• In a pan, add one tablespoon of ghee and add the rava and fry in low flame till it turns light brown in color, you should feel the aroma of the rava, this will take 4-6 mins, stir it continuously to fry rava evenly. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool.
• Slightly coarse grind the roasted rava ( do not grind to fine powder), and transfer this to wide open bowl or in a plate.
• Add the powdered sugar, cardamon powder to the rava and mix well.
• Heat the Ghee and pour it into the mixture and mix well.
• When the mixture is warm enough to handle take a small handful of them and squeeze between your fingers and palm to form a small lemon sized balls.
• If the mixture is too dry and starts to crumble, add few teaspoon of heated ghee, and form the balls.
• Your Rava laddu will be very soft now, no worries, after a while they will harden.
• Store them in an air tight container once it is cooled.

Note

• If you feel that it is too much ghee, you can add a small amount of milk.
• If you are adding cashews to the laddus then, in a seperate pan heat the ghee, add cashews and fry till golden brown, drain from the ghee and fry the raisins in the same ghee. When your mixing sugar with the powdered rava, add these fried cashews and raisins to that mixture.

Shankarapali (Inippu Biscuit)

Here comes another very easy recipe. Most of us don't know the exact recipe and with no other choice we go to the nearest sweet store to get this small delicious biscuit. In most of the Mixtures(Savories in local Indian sweet shops) we can find this small sweet biscuit. I have no clue about the name of this recipe, just found from website, but generally in stores they call it as Inippu Biscuit. This is my sis fav too.

Ingredients
1 1/2 - 2 cups Plain Flour
1/3 cup Ghee (Clarified Butter)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup full cream milk
A pinch of Cardamon powder
1 tablespoon Semolina/Rava
Oil for frying

Method

• Heat the pan in low flame and melt sugar in Milk and also add ghee and melt it till the sugar gets dissolved. Allow it to cool. Add the cardamon powder and rava to it.
• Slowly add the plain flour and mix it, add the flour till you get a soft dough.
• Knead into a soft pliable dough.
• Divide the dough into big lemon size, roll into chapatis 1/3" thick.
• Cut into small square shapes or any size as your choice.
• Carefully transfer to a dry cloth or any non-stick surface, and allow it to dry for 1 hour.
• Deep fry in hot oil over slow flame till light brown color.
• Drain well and keep aside till cool.
• Store in clean and dry container.

Note

• I used cookie cutter for different shapes, but the general shape we get from sweet store is square shape.
• Slowly add the flour for kneading the dough, do not add all the flour at one time.
• For extra flavor i added 1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla extract.
• When you roll like thick chapatis dust the flour so that it won't be sticky.

Nei Biscuit (Ghee Biscuit)

Nei Biscuit is fav among most of the kids, i always use to wonder what would be the recipe for this biscuit, according to me it was a very tough job. Only after searching the recipe for this biscuit i realized that it is such an easy recipe. We call it as Joosebery (Not sure about the pronunciation :p). Nei is nothing but Clarified Butter.
When i was too young i can still remember my appa did this biscuit for us, that was the best taste i've ever tasted:):)

Ingredients
1 1/2  cup Plain Flour
1/4 cup Ghee
1/2 cup Icing sugar
1/4 teaspoon Baking powder
A pinch of Salt

Method

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (approx 162 degrees C)
• Mix the ghee and sugar, beat well till you get the creamy texture.
• Add the rest of the ingredients, mix well and knead into a soft dough. The dough should be very soft, even if it is sticky no prob, if you feel the sweetness is less, add some sugar. (This is definitely no prob).
• Place a baking sheet in a tray and take the desired size balls and slightly flatten it and place it in the tray.
• There should be space between each biscuits.
• Bake it for 9-12 mins, not more than that. If you feel the biscuits is not done, bake for another 3-5 mins.
• The Biscuits shouldn't turn brown. The right way to know is, your biscuits starts leaving from your sheet.
• When the Biscuits are hot, it looks like very soft and smooth, no worries, after cooling you will get the exact texture.

Note

• Do not melt the ghee
• If you do not have Icing sugar, you can use normal sugar but powder it.

Paasi Payaru Nei Urundai (Green Moong dal balls)

This is a very healthy sweet, the amount of ghee i used here is very limited. You can't find  this sweet in most of the sweet shop. Traditional and also a simple recipe. After preparing it, store it in a Air tight container, it will last for even a month. 

Ingredients
1 cup Paasi payaru (Green moong dal)
2 tablespoon Pottu kadalai (Roasted gram)
3/4 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Ghee (Clarified Butter)
2 Cardamon pods
1 tablespoon of Cashews

Method

• Roast the cashews with a teaspoon of ghee and keep it aside.
• Powder the pottu kadalai. Sift it.
• In a heated pan, dry roast the dal, till it turns into very light brown color. Remove from the stove and allow it to cool.
• Grind the roasted dal and cardamon pods to fine powder and sift it. Add it to the pottu kadalai powder.
• Powder the sugar and mix well with the dal powder mixture and also add the roasted cashews to it. Mix well.
• Heat ghee, and pour this to the mixture and mix.
• Immediately make the desired size balls.
• Gives you 16-20 urundais

Note

• If this ghee isn't sufficient, add a little more.
• When you heat the ghee and pour on to the sweet mixture, the sooner you make balls, the lesser will be the ghee usage. 
• If you aren't able to make balls out of the mixture, you can add more heated ghee to it. To avoid this divide the sweet mixture into small portion and pour little ghee to mixture make the balls after finishing it, follow the same for other portions too.