Sharkarpara

This is yet another one of my Deepavali favourites. We used to get this sweet from our Punjabi friends for Deepavali. This is also my mum's favorite. I made some using the recipe below and gave some to her and she thought the paras were store-bought.

Ingredients:

500g all purpose flour
100g shortening (I used 50g unsalted butter and 50g vegetable shortenening)
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

enough water to make a medium firm dough.

For the syrup:

300g sugar
100g water

Method:

1.   Sift flour, baking powder and salt together.
2.   Rub shortening into the flour.
3.    Add in water a little at a time until you have a firm smooth dough.
4.   Wrap dough in cling wrap and let is rest for about 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
5.   Roll dough out to 1/2 inch thickness and cut  paras into 1 cm squares.
6.   Heat oil drop in paras into medium low flame and fry until the paras are light brown.
7.   Drain on paper towels and let it cool to room temperature.
8.   Once the paras are at room temperature, prepare the syrup for the sugar coating.
9.   Heat sugar and water in a wok and keep stirring the syrup until it it reaches soft ball stage.
      Syrup dropped into a bowl of cold wateer should be able to hold it shape and form a soft
      ball.
10. At this stage drop in the paras into the sugar syrup and stir quickly until all the paras are
       well coated with syrup. Turn off the fire and transfer the paras to a tray to cool.
11. Break the paras up and store in an air tight container.

Note:
Need to fry the paras in medium to low heat so that the paras get cooked inside.

Somas Urundai

My late aunt ( we called her kannu attai) used to make this sweet. My mum got the recipe from her and used it to make this for us for tea. I dont think I have come across this sweet or recipe anywhere else. I wonder where my aunt got this recipe or maybe it was her own creation. Nevertheless it is an all time favourite for me.

Ingredients

1 cup rava/sooji
3/4 cups sugar
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup scraped coconut
water

Directions

1. Dry roast coconut in low flame until it is aromatic and turns light brown. Keep aside.
2. Dry roast rava/sooji until it very lighly browned.
3. With the flame at low, add in the sugar, roasted coconut and salt and stir well for 1 minute.
4. Sprinkle some water to bind the rava mixture. Sprinkle water a little at a time. Rava mixture should be like breadcrumbs. If too much water is added, the rava mixture will turn into a ball or become like kesari.
5. Let the rava mixture cool and then form into lime sized balls.
6. Deep fry in medium hot oil until rava urundai turns golden brown. Rava urundai will be crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.  Mmmm....divine....
7. Enjoy with a hot cup of masala tea.