White Pumpkin Halwa- Navratri Special

I bought this beautiful work of art from Kolkata. Maa Durga is placed for Pooja on these 9 days of Navratri.



Ingredients

1 cup grated white pumpkin
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup khoya (mawa)
Dry fruite to garnish
1 tsp cardamom powder
2-3 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)

Preparation

In a pan heat 1 tsp ghee and saute cashew nuts and raisins till golden, remove and set aside. In the same pan add the remaining ghee and saute the grated pumpkin on medium heat till the raw smell of the pumpkin leaves. Add cardamom powder, sugar and khoya to the pumpkin. Cook till the ingredients combine well and the moisture dries up.
Add dryfruits and remove from heat. Serve warm.




Sending this to CFK- Festive Foods hosted by Suma. Please send your lovely festive entries to this event.

Chekkalu ( Rice Crackers) Navratri special

Chekkalu ( in telugu) and thatti (in Tamil)is a great snack weather its festive season or not. They are usually made with channa dal but I tried them with moong dal and it tasted great too.

Ingredients

2 tbsp split yellow moong dal(soaked in water for 1/2 hour)
2 tsp green chilli paste
1 cup rice flour
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste(optional)
2 sprigs of roughly torn curry leaves
2 tsp butter
1 tsp cumin seeds
salt to taste
1 cup warm water

Preparation

In a pan bring a cup of water to boil. Turn off heat, add rice flour, salt, cumin, chillipaste, ginger-garlic paste, butter, curry leaves, soaked and drained moong dal and kned into soft dough. Cover wit lid and set aside for 10 minutes.
In a pan heat oil for deep frying. Take a small lemon sized ball of the dough, place it on an oiled plastic sheet or banana leaf and using your fingers shape it into a flat 2″ circle. Use a fork to make small dents all over the chekkalu so that they don’t puff up when deep frying.(I forgot to do some of them in hurry)
Gently take the flattened piece and deep fry in oil. On medium heat deep fry till golden colour.
Moong Dal chekkalu are ready to go with chai:)

I am sending these to CFK- Festive food-sweet and savory version hosted by Suma.

Erra gummidikaya Boorelu-Red Pumpkin fritters - Navratri special

The Basic boorelu recipe is here

Ingredients for batter
2 cup rice
1 cup black gram dal
salt to taste

For filling
1 cup fresh grated coconut
1 cup Jaggery
1 cup grated or crushed yellow/red pumpkin
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
2 tbsp ghee
Oil for deep frying

Preparation

Soak Black gram dal(urad dal) and rice overnight or for about 5-6 hours. Drain the water and grind to a thick dosa batter. Add salt and set aside.
In a pan heat up ghee, add grated pumpkin and saute till the raw smell leaves. To this add Jaggery, coconut, cardamom powder and mix well. Cook till moisture dries up completely. The mixture should be such that it can be made to small lemon size balls.
Remove the mixture from heat and let it cool. Make small balls, dip them in the dosa batter gently so that the ball is completely covered by the batter. Drip off excess batter and deep fry in oil till golden colour. Serve warm.




I am sending this to Festive Food hosted by Khauguri