Recipes for Holi

On the day of Holi, apart from the joys of playing with colours, one also looks forward to enjoying delicacies that are specific to this festival and season. Every region of the country, and every home for that matter, has some special dishes and drinks which are relished on this day. It would be nice to add a few more recipes for making the day even more special. Look forward to indulging your platter with a new dish this Holi.

Puran Poli

Ingredients: 300gms. chana dal (yellow gram), 1 tablespoon cardamom powder, 300 gms. Jaggery or sugar, 1 tablespoon Ghee, 150 gms. plain flour and ghee for serving

Method

• Boil chana dal in lots of water till it gets soft but ensure that it does not get broken. Drain for 10 to 15 minutes in a strainer. Let it through an almond grater in small quantities till all of the dal is grated. Break the lumps of jaggery by mashing. Mix jaggery well with dal. Put this combination in a heavy saucepan. Keep cooking till a soft lump gets formed. Stir continuously with care so that it does not get charred. Leave it for a while and turn to prepare dough.
• Mix ghee and flour and add only so much water that is necessary to make soft dough. Take one bit of ball which can be rolled into a 4 inches round. Make the round piece of dough. Take the earlier prepared filling and place it in the centre and seal. Now, reroll the filling stuffed dough to 6 inches round diameter. Roast till golden brown on a warm griddle. Repeat from the other side.

Note: The water drained out from boiled dal can be used for making the amti.  Its ingredients are garam masala, black masala and mashed dal to prepare a thin curry.
Apply one tablespoon of ghee throughout the top. Take a serving plate. Serve hot with amti or dal.

Kanje ke Vade

Quantities relevant for making about 1 Kg of the dish.

Ingredients:  1 kg urad dal, 3 tablespoons of salt, 2 pieces of hing, 4 tablespoons finely ground rai, 2 tablespoons pounded red chillies, 6 jugs water where 1 jug to be taken as 6 glasses, Oil for deep frying, whole red chillies for garnish.

Preparation

• Immerse urad dal in water overnight. Use that overnight soaked urad dal to make a fine paste by grinding. It should be consistent as a cake batter.
• Place it in a vessel and whip it well to make a fluffy mixture.
• Put oil liberally in a deep frying pan and heat it well.
• To test whether the oil is ready, drop bits of the mixture into a pan. If it becomes fluffy and starts to float on the surface, you should consider the oil ready.
• Place small piece of wet cloth on left palm. Now you can simply let the vadas to slip through it into the frying pan without any trouble.
• Place some of this mixture on the cloth to flatten it. Shape it into round vadas, about one-inch in diameter. Slide these onto the frying oil in the pan, and allow it to deep fry.
• After thorough frying, the vadas would get a golden brown tinge. Do not make the vadas too thick.
• Heat up a tawa and put hing crystals on it. Get an earthenware pot, i.e. matka. As soon as the heated hing start emitting an aroma, put the matka over it, keeping it upside down. 
• This is done for keeping intact the smell.
• Take the matka off the fire and put warm water in it.
• Red chilli powder, salt, rai and whole red chillies are now mixed into this water. Put the fried vadas into the matka. Cover the top of the matka with clean muslin and tie it with a tight knot.
• Keep the matka under the sun regularly for 8 days.
• The vadas would be ready for serving after that.

Lauki Burfi Recipe

Lauki Burfi is a popular recipe but it is not prepared in every home. Learn the preparation of Lauki Burfi with this simple recipe.

Ingredients: 2 cups of grated Lauki , 1/2 cup Sugar, 1 litre Milk, 1 tablespoon Cardamom Powder, 1 cup Khoya, 1/4 tablespoon natural green colour.

Preparation

• Put the milk to boil in a pan.
• Add grated lauki in the boiled milk.
• When half of the milk is boiled off, add sugar, khoya and natural green colour.
• When the foam starts to leave from the side of vessel, put it in an aluminium tray that has been greased.
• Add cardamom. 
• Cut the one whole into pieces after about an hour.
• Savour Lauki Ki Burfi.