BALLS & DUMPLINGS - MISCELLANEOUS
Angoori Petha
4 pounds White pumpkin
¼ tsp slaked lime
3 cups sugar
a few drops yellow food colour
1 cup dried coconut
Peel and deseed the pumpkin. Scoop out balls from the pumpkin by using a melon scoop. Prick each pumpkin ball with a fork at close intervals. Rub the slaked lime on the pumpkin balls and set aside for 5 minutes. Wash the pumpkin balls thoroughly. Drain and set aside. In a heavy bottomed pan, mix the sugar and yellow food colouring with 2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Remove any impurities floating on the surface with a slotted spoon. Put the pumpkin balls in the syrup and cook on a high flame for 10 to 15 minutes. Take out from the fire. Cool completely. Drain from the sugar syrup and roll the petha balls in dried coconut.
Athirasam
Rice - 1-1/2 cups
Cardamom Powder - 1/2 tsp
Powdered Jaggery - 2 cups
Ghee for frying
Soak the rice for 1/2 hour. Decant water completely and while still wet, powder it coarsely in a grinder or mixie. Heat 1/2 cup water and dissolve the powdered jaggery completely. Filter out the impurities, if any. Prepare a syrup by heating up the jaggery water over a medium heat. When it thickens slightly, add the rice powder and cardamom powder and stir well to mix uniformly. Let it cool for sometime. Take lemon sized balls of this dough and flatten out thickly over a greased plastic sheet or foil. Heat up ghee in a deep kadai and when hot, deep fry the athirasams one at a time until until brown on both sides. Drain off the excess oil.
Calcutta Monoranjan Pitha
Half a coconut, ground
½ cup semolina (sooji)
1/8 cup dehydrated milk (khoa)
¼ cup sugar
2 pints milk
1 tbsp ghee
few green cardomom, ground
Grind half a coconut and mix in well with the semolina, dehydrated milk and sugar. Boil and reduce the milk in a pan to a little more than half the original quantity and allow it to cool. Cook the ground coconut mixture in a wok over moderate heat until it leaves the sides of the wok. Shape into tiny half-moon shaped cakes and place them on a greased plate. Heat the ghee in a frying pan and spread it all over to grease the entire surface of the pan. Fry the pithas a few at a time on very gentle heat, turning them over carefully so that they brown evenly. This is the tricky bit. The oil should not be too deep in the pan and the heat really low. Place them carefully in the thickened milk as you lift them from the pan. Sprinkle the dish with ground green cardomom seeds.
Ekadasi Coconut Beads
1-1/2 cups Milk condensed, sweetened
1-1/2 cups Coconut, shredded
Handful chopped Walnuts
Mix the milk and coconut together until you can form fairly hard beads, about an inch in diameter. If they are too soft and come apart add some dry coconut. Fold a piece of walnut or a small piece of dry fruit in the center of each as you roll them. Bake until golden brown and offer.
