Gulabi Puvvulu/Rose cookies/Rosettes

It was quite a long time that I am trying to post this recipe, it is lying in my drafts section for a while and finally today I took some time out to post this recipe. While I am in California, one of my dearest friends Anitha and me we both used to go for morning walk and used to discuss on many things like education, people, society and many other things. We both used to have combined studies at my home and then we both used to try together any kind of new recipe which she comes across or me. One day in our normal discussion she told me that she got the Gulabi Puvullu  or Rose cookies/Rosettes  mould by listening to that I was very happy as it was quite a long time I ate them when mom used to do it . That’s all we both decided to do that on that day and got the mould and started it they turned out very well. But very unfortunately my camera acted too smartly that day so couldn’t take nice snaps. Sorry for that ….

After, I moved to Atlanta, missing all that fun with my friends and special pot lucks without any occasion. Thanks to Anitha for sharing this recipe. Miss you so much….

Ingredients:

• Maida - 2 cups
• Rice Flour - 1 cup
• Sugar-1 ½ cup
• Elaichi/ Cardamom powder – 2 tsp
• Water- 1 cup
• Oil for deep frying
• Salt to taste

Method:

• Take a vessel and put together rice flour, maida, cardamom powder, salt, and sugar and add slowly the water to make a smooth batter, the batter shouldn’t be too loose and pouring nor the batter shouldn’t be too thick. It should be consistent enough and should form like a dosa batter  
• Take a heavy bottomed vessel and pour oil for deep frying and heat it till the oil is too hot. Now put the mould in the hot oil (this needs to be done before dipping the mould into the batter).
• Remove the mould from the hot oil and dip it in the batter and remove and place it in the hot oil and leave it for less than a minute. Use a spoon/fork to gently shake the mould with it so that the shape of the mould will be left in oil and leaves the mould.
• Ensure to keep the heat in a medium flame (or) adjust accordingly to amount of heat required.
• When the gulabi puvvu turns into golden colour , turn on both sides and remove from oil using a slotted ladle and remove onto a paper tissue to absorb the excess oil in it .
• Repeat the same process till the batter is completed.
• Once cool, Store them in an air tight container.

Rava Laddu

Hi Friends, Back here after a long time, enjoyed my long week end in Grand Canyon, one of the most beautiful scenic place and one of the wonders of the world. The trip was so enjoyable and of course, the Arizona is also too hot, when we were there it is 105 degrees Far Hein heat so it’s really very hot but the struggle we took to reach to north rim and south rim of canyon was all gone once we reach over there and started viewing all the spectacular views of the canyon. So over all my trip is good and back to Torrance by Monday night and started thinking of writing the blog since a week busy with things at home so couldn’t post anything. This July I really wanted to start with a Sweet Dish.Rava Laddu is one of the most traditional, simple, easy sweet. This sweet can be prepared in less than 15- 20 min. It can be prepared for any kind of occasion / as a snack for children at evening time. Here goes the recipe:

Ingredients:

• Sooji rava/Bombay rava - 1 cup
• Ghee /melted butter - 3 tbsp
• Cashew nuts – handful
• Raisins-6
• Almonds-6
• Grated Coconut – 1 cup (use the fresh grated coconut, dry one is not preferable)
• Sugar- 1 cup

Method:

• Take a pan, add two spoons of ghee and roast all the nuts and raisins, keep them aside.
• In the same pan add 2 tsp ghee and roast the sooji (not deep) until it turns light golden colour.
• Keep this sooji aside and let it cool.
• Now add remaining ghee to the pan, add the coconut and roast it in medium low flame until all the ghee absorbs the coconut and it turns to little golden brown in colour.
• Now take a vessel and mix all the roasted sooji, coconut, nuts, sugar and mix well.
• Sugar need to be added when a coconut and sooji are hot, other wise sugar cannot be mixed up properly.
• Try to make into round balls by rolling the mixture in between the hands.
• Rava Laddu is ready to serve.

Shrikand

One day all our friends have arranged for a potluck in my home. So one of my friends by name “Nikita” brought this sweet Shrikand, that day I decided to try this sweet. Finally I made it last week end. Before the preparation of this I never felt that it is so easy to have shrikand at home. So without further delay here goes the recipe:

Ingredients:

• Thick yogurt /Curd - 1 box / ½ kg (I used Cost Co –Mountain High yogurt box)
• Sugar – 2 cups (finely powdered) 
• Cardamom powder – 1 tsp
• Few strands saffron – original recipe calls for this (but I don’t have this at my home so I didn’t use them)
• Almond -10 (coarsely crushed) (you can use pistachios also)

Method:

• Tie curd /yogurt in a clean muslin cloth overnight. (6-7 hours) and hang it so that it leaves the excess water completely out side.
• Remove from the cloth and gently press the yogurt to remove any other excess water left out. 
• Put into a bowl and add sugar .Mix it.
• Keep aside for 25-30 minutes to allow sugar to dissolve.
• Rub saffron into 1 tbsp. milk till well broken and dissolved. Keep aside.
• Beat well till sugar has fully dissolved into curd.
• Mix in cardamom powder and dissolved saffron and half almonds.
• Pour the mixture into a glass serving bowl, top with remaining almonds crush.
• Chill for 1-2 hours before serving.

Note: please use a white muslin cloth as I don’t have any I used a red dupatta but it leaved a bit of red colour to my yogurt. Taste doesn’t change.


Sorry for the poor picture quality , i took from a mobile that day.