Madatha Kaja

These are the mini version of famous andhra sweet " Madatha Kaja". They are one delicious sweet that will just melt in your mouth.

Ingredients : 

For Kaja 

1/2 Cup Maida  

Pinch of Baking soda

1 Tbs Ghee 

1/2 cup Curd ( Varies while mixing the dough)

Oil to fry

1 Tbs Elachi Powder

3 Tbs of Rice flour

3 Tbs of Ghee for rolling the kaja's

For Sugar Syrup 

1 cup Sugar 

1/2 Cup Water 

1. Mix all the Kaja ingredients except the rice flour and 3 tbs of Ghee. I used curd to mix the flour but not water. If the dough becomes sticky just sprinkle little maida and make a soft dough.

2. Allow the dough to stay for 2 hrs in a bowel covered with wet cloth. 

3. Now take a deep vessel & heat it with water & to that add sugar. 

4. Boil the sugar syrup to string consistency and add elachi to it. 

5. Now divide dough and make 3 equal balls ( the 1/2 cup maida makes 3 balls ). 

6. Now spread the dough like a mat and apply 1 tbs of Ghee and sprinkle some rice flour on the dough like shown in the image.  

7.Now roll them as shown in the figure and cut them in to small pieces. 

8. Deep fry them in the oil till they turn brown. Now add them to the sugar syrup. Leave them in syrup for 15mins & remove them in to a container.

9. You can store them in a container for more than a week.

Baked Semolina/ Sooji Cakes

This dish goes very well as a appetizer or a evening snack. 

The actual recipe I came across was made of " Polenta" though I have replaced  Polenta with Semolina for my convenience. I tried transforming this to a pure Indian dish with some Italian touches. 

Ingredients 

1 1/2 cup Semolina

2 Tbs Corn flour 

1/2 Cup Peas  

1/2 cup milk

3 Tbs Olive Oil 

2 Tbs Butter 

3 Garlic Cloves (Crushed)

1 Tbs Mustard 

For Stock

3 Red chillis 

Small bunch of Basil leaves 

2 Tomatoes 

Salt

Baking 

1/2 cup All purpose flour

Oil

Bread Crumbs 

1/2 cup of cheese 

1. Heat a pan with oil and add mustard. Once they splutter add crushed garlic and allow it to fry for few seconds. 

2. Grind the stock ingredients. Add 1 1/2 cup of stock to the pan along with milk & peas.Bring to boil. 

3. Add Semolina to the pan slowly whisking the stock.

4. Here I added the corn flour directly to the stock and kept whisking it till it semolina becomes thick. 

( Till here it's same as we make upma)

5. Once it's thick switch off the pan and transfer your ingredients to a pan. 

6. Refrigerate them for 5 hrs and cut them to square pieces.

7. Roll each piece in Flour and pan fry them with little oil on 2 sides till they turn brown. 

8. Take a baking pan arrange them in the pan and sprinkle with Bread Crumbs and Cheese on top. 

9. Bake them at 370 degrees for 15 mins. 

* Serve hot they are crunchy out side and smooth inside.