I have posted a lot of Konkani dishes, but one thing that I have not covered is “sundried items”. During summer, like any other Indian families, we too make a lot of different papads , wadis/odis and other items that can be stored for the entire year. My aayi also used to make these when we were kids. I have very fond memories of the summer holidays when we made all these. I never attempted making any on my own, but when aayi came here, I made sure to ask her for these. Since the first few days we had a bright and hot sun, we could successfully make these bitter gourd( karathe – Konkani, hagalakayi – Kannada) sun dried chips ( kachri – Konkani, sandige – Kannada). I don’t know how this series will continue because there is no sight of hot sun in last few days.
After these pieces are dried, these are stored in air tight container. When needed, a small batch is taken out and deep fried. These fried pieces can be stored for 4-5 days in air tight container. The fried pieces can be eaten along with papad as a side dish, or crushed slightly and put in curd rise or crushed and used in chutney / sasam . Any which way, they taste simply out of the world. Today instead of deep frying, we fried them in a shallow pan with 1-2 tea spn of oil. They still turned out to be very crispy and tasty.
Ingredients: 2 cup bitter gourd thinly sliced (the thinner the better) 2 tea spn chili powder 1/4 tea spn asafoetida powder 1 tea spn salt
Method: Mix salt with the bitter gourd pieces( remove any hard seeds) and leave it overnight. Squeeze the pieces slightly to remove any water from the pieces (squeezing is optional, if you like them to be more bitter, leave the pieces as they are).
Now spread them on a plastic paper and leave under hot sun. After 3-4 days when they look slightly dried, make a paste of red chili powder and asafoetida with a tea spn water, and apply this paste to the pieces.
Spread this on the paper again and sun dry them till they become very crispy. When they are cooled to room temperature, store in air tight container. While serving, fry them in oil, serve as suggested above.
PS: When the pieces dry, some of the chili powder falls off the pieces. Asafoetida looses its aroma when dried for long. So both of these should be added as late in the process as possible.
Rave laddu or rava laddoo is one of my favorite sweets from my childhood. Aayi used to make these beautiful yellow colored laddoos with one kishmish (raisin) in each. I absolutely adored these. Though I always ran away when she made these (I was a very lazy kid), I promptly reached to taste them when they were done. Then there were some instances where I offered help and almost burnt my hands by putting them in hot laddoo mixture.
Aayi usually does not add saffron. She adds a pinch of yellow food color to get the bright yellow color to these. Her version is not too oily or too dry (which I observed in the laddoos made by others). Since I didn’t want to use the color, we used saffron. It gave a nice aroma.
Ingredients: 1 cup fine wheat sooji/rava 1 cup sugar 2-3 cloves Few strands saffron(optional) 1 tea spn raisins 1/2 tea spn cardamom powder 1/2 cup water 1-2 tbl spn Ghee
Method: Slightly crush cloves and keep aside. Heat ghee and add cloves, raisins. The cloves and raisins slightly puff up in hot ghee . Add sooji and fry on medium heat mixing continuously till a nice aroma comes out of it. Take out the sooji in a plate.
In the same pan, add water, sugar and heat. Add the saffron strands. Boil it for few minutes.
Switch off the heat and add sooji and mix well. Add cardamom powder and mix well. At this stage, the mixture becomes too watery which is perfectly fine. It gets dry as time passes. Close the lid of the pan and let it sit for about 15-20mins.
When it is dried and can be handled, apply some ghee to hands and make laddoos .
When they are cooled to room temperature, store in air tight containers. Finish them within 1 week.
Makes about 8-10 laddoos
PS: The cardamom powder should not be added till the end. If it is added before, the laddoos loose their aroma. Some people add milk at the end when the laddoo mix becomes too dry. Avoid this situation as much as possible. This decreases the shelf life. If the mixture does not get dry after keeping for about 20mins, you can slightly heat it to get it dry. If the rava is not roasted properly, the laddoos come out to be very sticky. So fry till it turns slightly reddish.
