Karigadabu – Karnataka Style Karanji/ Gujiya recipe

Ingredients

• 1 cup Whole Wheat Flour or all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup Sooji (Semolina/ Rava) fine variety
• 1 handful Rice flour
• 2 tablespoon Ghee melted
• Oil to deep fry
• 1/2 cup Roasted Gram Dal (Pottukadalai)
• 1/4 cup Dessicated Coconut
• 1/4 cup Sugar
• 2 Cardamom (Elaichi) Pods/Seeds

Steps

1. To prepare Karigadabu – Karnataka Style Karanji recipe, heat ghee in a Tadka pan. Mix wheat flour, rice flour and semolina in a bowl. Pour hot ghee to this flour and semolina mixture evenly. Ghee bubbles up the flour where it comes in contact with it, so pour in the ghee slowly.
2. Mix with fingers after a minute. The mixture will look like bread crumbs. This will ensure you get nice flaky pastry once fried.
3. Now add water to knead the pastry dough. Let the dough be stiff and not too soft. Knead it till the pastry dough is smooth.
4. Cover the pastry dough with a damp cloth and let it rest till the filling is prepared.
5. For the filling, powder fried gram, cardamom, and sugar in a Mixer Grinder. To this mixture, add grated coconut and mix well.
6. Now remove the damp cloth off the pastry dough. Knead it again for a minute or two, and make small lemon sized balls.
7. Take a ball of pastry dough and roll it into a very thin disk of around 4 inches diameter (around 2mm thick). Keep the rest of the dough balls covered in damp cloth while doing this.
8. Now place 1 tablespoon of sweet filling on one-half of the rolled pastry. Brush the edges with water, using a pastry brush/finger. Fold half of the pastry dough over the sweet filling on the other half to make a semi-circle. Press the edges ensuring no gaps are left.
9. Keep the prepared Karanji/Karigadubu on a plate and keep them covered with damp cloth until all the Karigadubus are prepared. Otherwise, they will get dry and break.
10. Press the edges with fork to give it a pattern and further secure the edges. Repeat this with all the pastry dough balls by filling the sweet filling and securing it within.
11. Heat the oil in a deep Kadaiover medium heat. Once the oil is hot drop karigadubu one by one and fry them on a medium heat till golden in color.
12. Cool the Karigadabu completely before storing it in an air-tight container.
13. Serve Karigadubu as an evening snack or as a dessert during Karnataka Style Festive meal.