Memories of a little town

Ghari and Kadboli

These snack items remind me of the cute little town Dharwar, which is in Karnataka. I spent some part of my childhood days, did my schooling in Basel Mission High School. We children lived there with my grandmom in a lovely bungalow, since my mom travelled with my dad wherever his tranferable job took him. Life was different those days, we played  lagori, kho kho and hide and seek, hiding climbing on trees and terraces and even neighbour's homes, Our elbows and knees were perpetually bruised by playing in stones and mud.

My school was at a distance of hop skip and jump from home, so we came home for lunch and also during the short recess. The dishes mentioned above were always available to us for our evening hunger pangs. There were no CCDs and StarBucks then. Home was where we ate and drank our coffee. Life was simple, sweet and innocent as it should be at that age. I miss my school, those days and the people who made life sweet for us.

Ghari, a sweet snack

Ghari, this is what it is called in Marathi. A sweet made of red pumpkin and jaggery. Takes me back to my childhood.
2 cups grated red pumpkin
1and a 1/2 cup grated jaggery
A pinch of edible soda
A pinch of salt
Wheat flour as required
Oil/ ghee for frying

Method

Mix the grated pumpkin or jageery, rest it so it relases water, after sometime mix the rest of the ingredients, mixing flour slowly as per required, seeing that the dough becomes like it would be for a roti.
The dough should be mixed only in the water relaesed by the pumpkin, no extra water to be added. Drizzle little oil rest this for a while.

In a kadhai heat oil or ghee, make small balls of the dough and flatten them on the palm You can use butter papaer for this. Palms should be greased since the dough is sticky becuase of jaggery. Fry them on medium heat till golden brown, taking care to see they get cooked from inside and do not burn from the outside.

Relish them with ghee on top, or as a teatime snack. They as tasty as cookies and crisp too. Enjoy friends. 

Kadboli, a savoury snack

Kadboli, a teatime snack made in Karnataka and some parts of Maharashtra too.

Ingredients
1 cup rice flour
1/4 cup maida
1 cup fresh scraped coconut
Salt as required
4 dry red chillies
1/2 tspoon carom seeds
1 tspoon of cumin seeds
Pinch of asefoetida
1 big spoon heated oil for pouring in the dough

Method
Grind the coconut, chillies, carom seeds, cumin seeds, asefotida in a mixi and mix this into the rice and maida mix, add salt as per taste and make soft dough like we would for roti.Keep oil to heat in a kadhai, grease your palms, make shapes of the dough as shown in the pic and fry on medium heat. See that they fry from inside and dont burn from outside. Fry them till deep golden and crisp.