Happy Sankrant Everyone ! Tilgul Ghya Goad Bola!!

It's that time of the year again folks, winter is in full bloom in Pune and it is deliciously cold. After experiencing the severe winters in UK for last  six years this mildly cold weather of Pune is a delightful change for all of us. I admit it still makes getting up early in the morning on school days very difficult, and almost everyday I am tempted to let my little one sleep and not bother him to go to school. Hmmm .... but that's not the way it works does it? If I give in to this temptation he would probably miss school every second day, and that is definitely a big NO NO.
Its also Sankranti time. One of my favourite festivals! I love tilgul and gulachi poli and halwa and the fact that the colour black is celebrated. I have a favourite black saree which I always make a point to wear on Sankranti. Sankrant is normally celebrated on the 14th of January,only this time it is on the 15th. So tomorrow I'll be preparing gulachi poli, and tilgul.

 As with most Indian festivals which are in one way or the other associated with the seasons of the year , Sakranti too has an association with the winter season. Sesame and jaggery the 2 main ingredients here both produce heat in the body and are the main heroes in all the sweets prepared for this event.
Many married women also invite other ladies to their homes for a haldi-kumkum ritual ,during which tilgul is distributed and each lady also gets a small gift to take home. That's the fun part of this programme. It's great fun going into the markets which are jam packed with different goodies you can buy for your haldikumkum function.
Today I am going to share with you the recipe for Gulachi Poli, which is a delicious sweet poli made with a filling of jaggery and sesame. Its to be eaten strictly with generous dollops of homemade ghee. That's a must.
So here goes:

Ingredients for 10 to 12 polis

1/4 kg plain jaggery (available at any grocery store)
1/2 cup of roasted sesame powder,
1/2 cup gram flour
1/4 cup oil to roast the gram flour
1/4 tspn cardammom powder

For the outer poli cover:
2 cups of wheat flour
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup fine semolina
1/4 cup gram flour
1/2 tblspn rice flour
1 pinch of salt
1/4 cup of very hot oil
1/2 cup rice flour to dust the poli when rolling it out

To make the filling:
Heat the oil and roast the gram flour until it changes colour slightly
Grate the jaggery. When the gram flour cools down add to it the  jaggery and the cardammom powder and the sesame powder. Knead the mixture until it all blends well together. You could even pound it a bit. Keep it to one side.

For the cover:
Mix all the ingredients for the cover and knead into a slightly stiff dough.
divide the dough into 18 to 20 equal portions and the jaggery filling into 9 to 10 equal parts
Now for every poli you need two portions of dough and one portion of jaggery.
Roll out all three portions into small discs of equal size. Place the jaggery portion in between the two dough portions and then roll out all three together into a thin poli the size of the regular phulka or roti.
Roast it on the tawa .
These polis will not be soft like normal rotis . They are slightly stiff to touch and break easily into smaller pieces. That's the way they should be.
They keep easily for 8 days without refrigeration.
Serve with big dollops of ghee.

Other Sankrant special recipes on Food-n-More:
Sesame snaps

Tilgul

Sesame Snaps (Tilgul)

Tilgul: A sweet which is prepared in all Marathi households on the 14th of January which is Sakranti. As with most Indian festivals which are in one way or the other associated with the seasons of the year , Sakranti too has an association with the winter season. Sesame and jaggery the 2 main ingredients here both produce heat in the body and so this sweet is particularly made on this day. This is one festival when the colour black is also celebrated and people particularly buy and wear black clothes on Sankranti. There is so much to share about this festival thatI will need another entire post to go into all the details.

But if Sankranti is still a month away why have I posted this Tilgul recipe now instead of in January. Well there are 4 reasons: 1. I made these yesterday as a practice session before the actual festival. My mother does this when she is not too sure about how a particular sweet will turn out.(which in her case is not often). 2. I will be taking a break from blogging in January as I am going to India for a 3 week holiday. 3. i wanted to share a tilgul recipe before the festival, so even you can try your hand at it a little in advance. 4. The sesame snaps turned out so well that I am as usual very impatient to share them with you.

Some of you might wonder why I call them Sesame Snaps. Well I discovered this name when I came to the UK. I saw these Sesame Snaps in a store. They are very similar and do satisfy my cravings for tilgul.

I have to admit that I have not used Jaggery in these. I substituted it with Demerara Sugar which is a delicious replacement for Jaggery. The recipe is one of the quickest. By quick I mean you have to be really quick while following some of the steps.

What you need:

1 cup Roasted Sesame seeds,

1.5 cups Brown Sugar,(or jaggery)

1/4 teaspoon Ghee (clarified butter)

3 to 4 drops Lemon Juice

Procedure:

Before you actually start with the cooking part, you need to grease a a small round area (about 10 cm in diametre) of your kitchen platform with a little calrified butter. Also grease a rolling pin with some ghee. This prevents the hot mixture from sticking to the surface and the pin.

Now in a heavy bottom pan melt the ghee and add to that the sugar and the lemon juice.Keep the heat low.

Once the sugar has completely melted, add the sesame seeds and quickly mix it with the sugar. Do this as fast as you can.

Now pour out this mixture onto the greased are on your kitchen paltform and immediately begin rolling it out with the greased pin . Roll it as thin as you can. IMP: Do not touch the hot mixture with your hands as it will stick to your hand and will burn the skin. Just as a precaution grease your palms with ghee too.)

Now take a sharp knife or a pizza cutter and mark out the diamond shapes (the shape can be any of your choice). This has to be done before the mixture hardens completely. Once the mixture hardens break out the individual pieces.

Store these in an airtight container. They keep for weeks

You will make about 30 to 35 pieces