It was some 10 years old story. I had been to my friend’s house for studying something. It was tea time and my friend’s grandmother, Mrs Diwan, served a laddoo . She asked me to taste it and guess what it was made of. I kept guessing, but every time I was wrong. The laddoos were just out of this world.
I don’t remember exactly how she made them, but I had a general idea. Yesterday I had 4-5 chapathis remaining from previous day. Since I am in festival mood, I thought of making these again. They came out great, we both enjoyed them a lot.
Preferably use 1 day old chapathis .
Ingredients: 4-5 chapathis 1/3 cup jaggery 2 tea spns ghee 1 tbl spn each of raisins and cashews 2-3 tbl spn milk 1/2 tea spn cardamom powder
Method: Tear the chapathis into pieces. Roast them on a large pan or spread on a cookie sheet and bake on a low temperature till they crisp up (do not burn them). I baked them at 250F for about 10mins and switched off oven and left them in the oven to get crispy in the warm oven. After sometime when I checked, they were totally crisped and became like papads . Now grind them to a smooth powder (do not add water). Heat ghee in a pan. Add cashews, raisins. Fry for few minutes and then add the powder and jaggery (preferably powdered or cut into tiny pieces). Keep mixing it for about 10mins on a medium/low flame. (Taste it at this stage, if you like more sweet, add little more jaggery). Take off heat. Add cardamom powder. Now sprinkle milk one table spoon at a time till the mixture can be handled easily and laddoos can be made easily. Make laddoos and serve.
Makes about 8 laddoos Preparation time : 20mins (not including chapathi crisping time)
After making so many sweets, I thought it is time for some deep frying. I had bought some sweet potatoes last week, as I like to eat boiled sweet potatoes. But they sat on the counter without being touched. Then I saw this shankarpali recipe in a book. So I thought of giving it a try.
Shankarpalis are small parallelogram shaped deep fried spicy or sweet treats. Many people make these for Diwali. I thought of making these special kind this time.
First batch was not as crispy as I expected. I was pretty much upset as I had made a pretty big dough – below recipe makes a huge batch. I thought the whole thing was a big flop. Then I remembered aayi’s tip, she always says we have to fry them on a medium flame till they are dark brown. I followed that and they came out very crispy. They were simply delicious.
Ingredients: 200gms(2 in number) sweet potato (approx 1 and 1/4 cups after cooking and mashing) 1 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour( maida ) 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 tea spn baking powder 2 tbl spns ghee 1/4 tea spn salt
Oil + 2 tbl spns ghee for deep frying
Method: Cook and mash sweet potatoes. Mix all other ingredients (except oil- ghee mixture used for deep frying) to make a dough. Take a big ball of the dough and roll into a circle of about 1/4 to 1/2 cm thickness. Cut them into parallelograms(I used pizza cutter to cut). Deep fry them in oil- ghee mixture on a medium flame. Remember to fry them till they are dark brown. If they are fried less than that, they don’t get crispy. Cool to room temperature and then store in air tight container.
