Chiroti Some Sweet Some Spicy

I was still studying in college when I first made Chiroti. I followed all the instructions to the T as per the recipe in Mangala Barve's Annapoorna. 

Ever since people who have eaten the Chiroti I make have conferred many loving titles on me. The best came from a family friend Mrs. Joshi, she who was born in the family of Bedekars, yes the famous household name. One Diwali she, her son Santosh and daughter were visiting us. I had offered Naivedya of Chiroti immediately after making them. My Uncle MJ offered them the Chiroti to taste. Mrs. Joshi loved them so much that she pulled me close and blessed me. It meant a big deal to me then and even now! for in the Bedekar and Joshi families all the women are sugrani, super cooks I mean besides being gourmands, tells my uncle.

If there is a single Diwali sweet my uncle MJ loves, it is these expressions of love the Gulabache Chiroti as they are called in Annapoorna. They do look like rose flowers if you use food color in the dough. I am against using artificial colors in food so you will almost never find me using it.

You can't imagine the happiness of my family when they get a parcel of Chiroti carefully packed in fragile handling material, reach them whole after traveling 1000 kms through 2 states by road. Every single time, what follows are long calls of appreciation and showering of love. Each time my uncle MJ's share is tampered with, for I am partial to him and its always a bigger pack.Well and now with all the diet restrictions my uncle does not eat sweets, so I gave some of the Chiroti a sprinkle of spice instead of a shower of sugar.

I am sharing this time tested recipe here from the book but I don't pound the dough with mortar and pestle anymore I might have done that only the first two times I made Chiroti. My method is simpler and I use pure ghee instead of Dalda for the shortening.

I am sure you will want to taste these Chiroti now after reading about how crazy my family is about these.Try them out now :D its the start of a weekend and make it some sweet and some spicy...

Ingredients

For the dough
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup molten ghee
60 ml milk
1/4 cup powdered sugar + 4 cardamoms pounded
1 spoon of red chili powder

For the greasing layer
1/4 cup molten ghee
2 tablespoons corn flour

Ghee for Frying 

In a kneading bowl, put together all the ingredients all purpose flour, salt, molten but not hot ghee and milk. Knead into a really tight dough and leave it in the bowl. After an hour just beat the dough with the rolling pin till slightly soft and pliable. Divide the dough into 6 parts. Roll out all into chapathis. Now like you see here first make a paste of the ghee and cornflour. Use this paste to slather on one side of all the chapathis. Now tightly roll up one chapathi and overlap the second one a bit like in the picture and continue rolling up. Similarly roll up all six chapathis. Now roll the bundle a bit on the counter to tighten up and slightly increase the length of the roll.

Next cut up the roll into 1 cm thick roundels. I got 18 such.

Then roll out these roundels into puri sized Chiroti. When rolling out ensure you start rolling at a slant. This will keep the layers overlapped and hence make them strong enough for frying and holding the shape.

Now heat the ghee in a small kadhai. Once the ghee is hot reduce the flame to medium and then fry Chiroti about 2-3 at a time. Splash hot oil on the Chiroti to enable the loosening up of the layers to almost look like a blooming rose. Once they have the beautiful gold tan remove them on a kitchen paper lined mesh. Fry all of them.

Then while they are still warm shower some with cardamom and powdered sugar mix

Sprinkle some with red chili powder