Karanji

Make first filling. Begin by dry-roasting the coconut, sesame seeds and poppy seeds in a pan separately, until they turn golden brown.

Make sure that they are roasted and kept separately, and never together once done. After they cool down, grind them separately in a mixer (poppy seeds, sesame seeds and coconut- in that order) till you get a coarse texture.

Next, roast the semolina on medium heat in a shallow bottom pan with 1 tablespoon ghee or oil till it turns golden brown. Set this aside as well once done.

Roast the whole wheat flour with the remaining ghee/oil in the same pan, until golden brown and keep aside.

Now, put all the filling ingredients including the flour, semolina, coarse powders, jaggery, cardamom and nutmeg in a food processor, and blend them well for 2-3 minutes till they form a fine powder. The delicious coconut filling for the Karanji is now ready and can be set aside to be used later. 

Make cover of Karanji.

Heat 3 tablespoons of ghee or in a small pan. Once ghee is melted or when the oil is hot, turn off the heat and keep aside.

Add in the all-purpose flour, rava, sugar and salt into a large deep bowl. Make a depression in the centre and pour the hot ghee into it mixing it into the flour thoroughly with your fingers.  Knead the dough by pouring the water and milk mixture a little at a time.

Once the dough is pliable yet firm, cover it with a damp cloth and set it aside to rest for at least an hour or two.

Once done, cut each of these 4 elongated rolls into 10 one inch pieces each, having about 40 pieces in total once all the rolling is done. Cover all these pieces with a damp cloth to keep the dough softened until they are ready to be made into the Karanji.

Take one of the small dough pieces and with the help of a rolling pin, shape it into a small circular poori, 3-4 inch in diameter. Divide the poori into half, pour in 1-2 tablespoon of the filling on one side, and carefully fold the other half, closing the poori-shaped dough completely.

In order to shape these pooris, press them on the cutting board, and carefully remove the extra dough using a karanji cutter. Once done, keep it aside to be fried.

Repeat the same procedure for the remaining dough balls and cover the prepared karanjis with cloth when done.

Finally, deep-fry all the prepared karanjis in hot oil, turning them continuously till they turn golden brown. Your lip-smacking, hot and crunchy  karanji is ready to serve.