Gajar Poli with Potato & Rice Chakli

This Diwali I decided to experiment a little with sweets and savories. I wanted to give them a slight twist from the regular ….but still have the festive spirit. I decided to enlist all the goodies I had eaten during Diwali. From the list, I decided on making Ubbati ( Obbatu/Puran Poli). I have been gorging on the left overs from the coconut ice cream from the weekend, and didn’t want to shoot up my cholesterol any further:) , hence was looking around for substitutes for coconut. I found the traditional Konkani recipe that calls for mixing Channa Dal and Jaggery for the filling, but it sounded too labor intensive. That's when I stumbled upon Gajar ka halwa on my list. Yeah! You guessed it right…I asked myself why not use this for the stuffing…and that is exactly how I landed up with my version of Gajar Poli. I made a very dry version of the halwa for the stuffing.

Savories are as much a part of the fesival as are sweets. I began skimming pages of Jaya V.Shenoy's "Dakshin Bharat Dishes" and came across this recipe for Potato Murku. I wasnt sure if it would turn out crisp, so I did a mish mash of recipes with Potato Murku and the one on a previous page - Rice flour Murku ( both can be found under the same section of the book). The Chaklis..a.k.a Murkus came out quite crunchy and the flavor of potato stood out.

Trust me, both of these are super easy..super simple…take very less time…and pretty decent too! This Diwali give it a try.

It was fun experimenting, so I thought I'd contribute this to Vee's JFS: Diwali .

Gajar Poli

For Stuffing:
2 ½ cups Carrots, chopped
1 ½ cups Milk
2/3 cup Sugar
1 teaspoon Cardamom powder
1 tablespoon Almonds, blanched and finely chopped
1 tablespoon Clarified butter ( Ghee)

Method: In a food processor blend carrots and milk to a thick pulp. Heat clarified butter in a pan, add the carrot-milk pulp , sugar and cook together on low heat by stir continuously for 5 mins. Add almonds and cardamom powder, mix well. Cook on low heat, uncovered till dry. Remove from heat, set aside.

For the dough:
2 cups All Purpose Flour ( Maida)
3 tablespoons Oil ( Canola or Sunflower Oil)
A pinch of salt
A pinch Saffron soaked in 1 teaspoon water
Water as required

Method:
Mix all the ingredients with water. Knead well into a smooth non-sticky dough. Set aside for an hour.

To make Polis:
Flatten out small balls of dough. Place a teaspoon ( heaped) of filling in the center. Fold corners of the dough to center, engulfing the filling. Roll and flatten out into small–circular-thin polis. Cook on low heat using a griddle /crepe pan. Serve hot.

Potato & Rice Flour Chakli

Ingredients
2 ½ cup Potato flakes
1 teaspoon Chili powder
2 teaspoon Cumin seeds
2 tablespoon Unsalted Butter
½ cup All purpose flour (Maida)
2/3 cup Rice flour
A pinch of Asafoetida
Water as required
Oil for deep frying (Canola or Vegetable)

Method:
Sieve together All purpose flour and rice flour. Mix salt, cumin, butter and warm water. Add to the potato flakes, mix well. To this add the sieved flour mixture,asafoetida and knead well into a dough. Make sure that the dough is stiff and not watery. Make balls of the dough and add into the Chakli press ( choose the one with star shaped mould) and prepare small chaklis. Keep them 1” away from each other on parchment paper. Heat oil in a wok, add chaklis into the oil one by one. Deep fry till golden brown, by turning over a couple times. Allow to rest at room temperature and then store in air tight container.

Learnings: My first batch, I added them while hot into the air tight container..I realized they don’t remain crisp by doing so. Best way: bring chaklis to room temperature and then store.

On Bee's suggestion this picture my entry to the November Edition of Click. Thank you Bee!