This is a specialty from my native Kumta. I have not seen anyone making them at home. These are readily available in the shops. The best “Ganti” are available in a restaurant-shop “Alka”. Since my non-Konkani friends/relatives didn’t get the name “Ganti”, they called it “Chalk piece sweet” because the original “Ganti” is white in color and looks like a chalk piece.
I tried mastering this sweet many times. But the thing I failed was to get the white color to the sugar coating. The coating always became transparent. I asked many people if they knew about this dish, but no one seems to know how to make these. Aayi gave me this recipe, but she also had tried it long ago, and then just stopped making them at home. I can guarantee they taste as great as the original ones even though they “look” defferent due to the transparent coating.
If any one of you has more knowledge about the sugar syrups, please clarify my doubt – “till which stage the sugar syrup needs to be cooked so that, it gets its white color back after cooling?”.
Ingredients: All purpose flour(Maida) 1 cup Vanaspati ghee 1/6 cup Sugar 1 cup Vanaspati ghee (or oil) for deep frying Salt
Method: Mix Maida, vanaspati ghee, salt, water to make a soft dough. Knead well and make into a thin rope. Cut then into little-finger sized pieces.
Deep fry in ghee/oil on a very low flame. Take out in a large bowl.
Add 1 tbl spn of water to 1 cup of sugar and heat it till the sugar melts. Pour on top of the fried pieces and mix well so that all the pieces get a uniform sugar coating. Take out the pieces one by one and keep on a clean plate. When it is cooled, the sugar syrup coating will get its white color back (in ideal situations :D).
Preparation time : 30mins
We call Bottle gourd as ‘Gardudde ‘ in Konkani (there are other names also). ‘ Dudde ‘ is pumpkin, I wonder if it is related to pumpkin in someway??
I loved these burfis from my childhood. I would go on eating a half-dozen of them at a time. I think the color of these largely depend on the sugar. Though there are many bottle gourd dishes in Konkani cuisine, my personal favorite is always this burfi . Try it yourself to understand how good it is.
Ingredients: 2 cups bottle gourd(grated) Sugar 1/4 tea spn cardamom powder Ghee
Method:
In a thick bottomed pan, cook grated bottle gourd (do not add water, when it starts cooking, bottle gourd leaves water). In the traditional method, the pan is covered with a plate and water is added on the plate. This allows to cook faster.
When almost all the water is gone and bottle gourd is reduced in volume, add the sugar (same quantity as the cooked bottle gourd).
Keep mixing to avoid sticking to the bottom. Cook till the mixture becomes dry and the ends get white color(if the mixture does not gets dry, add more of sugar and keep mixing). Take out from the heat. Add cardamom powder.
Grease a plate with ghee and spread the mixture with the help of a rolling pin(apply ghee to rolling pin to avoid sticking).
Allow the mixture to cool and cut into desired shape.
Preparation time : 20-30mins
