Rawa Karanji

Karanji is one of the popular sweets made during various festivals in India, especially in winter and monsoon.

Cooking Time: 2-3 hours

One could make 40-50 Karanjis depending on the size.

For stuffing:

• 1/4kg thin semolina (one which is used for making laddus), roast semolina on a low flame with 2/3 spoons of ghee till it turns golden.
• 1/4kg powered sugar, sieve it
• 2 spoons sugar
• 1/4 cup black sesame seeds (roast without ghee for 1/2 minutes)
• 1/4 cup grated almonds (roast whole almonds in a few drops of ghee)
• 1/4 cup cashew tukda (make small pieces of 10 cashews and roast them in ghee)
• 10 roasted cardamoms (not in ghee) and make a thin powder after removing its cover.
• Roast all these ingredients separately until they release their aroma or turn golden.
• Grind it with 1/2 spoon sugar in a mixer.
• Mix all these ingredients together. Your stuffing is ready.
• Roast 50 raisins and Buchanania Lanzan (‘Charoli/Chironji’ in Hindi) separately in ghee. And you can add each of them while filling up the stuffing in a karanji.
• One can also add 4 spoons of grated dried coconut to this. You need to roast it until it turns golden.

For cover:

• 1/2kg refined flour (Maida), sieve it
• Heat 1/2 cup ghee on a low flame, once hot, pour it in flour. With a spoon mix both together.
• One can also add 1 spoonful of thin semolina to this mixture. This will create small bubbles on Karanji later.
• After a few minutes, add water and knead a dough with the help of fingers. Be careful as the mixture is hot.
• Keep the dough covered for half an hour.
• Make 4 equal portions of the dough. Take one out and 3 covered.
• Knead this dough again to make it smooth and roll it to form a line.
• Cut this line into small pieces ~10
• Take one piece and make a ball
• Roll out this ball and give it a round puri/small roti shape. Sprinkle some flour on it if it sticks.
• Once you roll the karanji, fill the stuffing in the center with the spoon.
• Don’t forget to add 1 raisin and 1 charoli
• Take one matchstick and seal one side with cotton.
• Take some water in a cup,  dip the cotton into the water, and make the circumference of the karanji wet.
• Fold the karanji carefully and keep one side over the other.
• Press it carefully so that it won’t open up at the time of frying and make sure no vacuum is left inside.
• With the help of a karanji cutter, give a shape to the karanji. Mix the excess part with another ball.
• We need to deep fry the karanji in ghee/oil
• Pour ghee into a steel vessel until it fills half the vessel and heat.
• When it becomes super hot, fry the karanji on a medium flame in boiling ghee/oil. Turn it off after a few seconds. You need to fry both sides until it turns slightly golden. You can also notice bubbles on its cover.
• Repeat the same for the rest of the balls.
• At a time, you can fry 2 karanjis depending on the size of the vessel.
• Make sure you cover other karanjis with a wet cloth until you put them in the vessel for frying.
• Once the karanji is fried, take it out on a tissue paper and keep it open for a few hours. Let it cool down completely and then store it in the container, placing butter paper in it
• These karanjis need to be consumed within 2 weeks
• If some stuffing still remains, you can store it for a week or two and utilise the same later.
• To begin with, you can take half of the measurement and make the karanjis.
• Karanjis taste better when fried in ghee.

Recipe Credits: Nili Atya