Choorma Laddoo Sweet Balls
Choorma or Churma Laddoo
Devi Patel
These delicious sweet balls are a popular snack in Gujarat and Rajasthan regions of India. Though a little fiddly, they are not too hard to make. This recipe comes from my Bhabi (sister in-law), who makes them just like mum.
Laddoos have a lot of ghee/clarified butter in it, so eat in moderation. Measurements are a rough guide only.
Makes 50.
Ingredients
For Dough:
375 gm. fine semolina
150 gm. chapatti flour
30 gm. besan or gram/chick pea flour
5 tbsp. ghee or clarified butter
250 fresh milk, finger warm
1/2 tsp. saffron or kesar strands
Other ingredients:
2-3 cups of fresh oil, for deep frying
50 gm. pistachio nuts
50 gm. almonds
1 tsp. ghee for frying the nuts
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
4 tsp. cardamom powder (made from green cardamoms)
100 gm. milk powder
125 ml. ghee for frying milk powder
250 gm. jaggery/gur or gur (unrefined cane sugar, sold in India stores)
125 ml. ghee or clarified butter fro melting with jaggery/gur/gur
2-3 tbsp. poppy seeds
Instructions
Add saffron threads to the warm (not hot) milk and keep aside.
Place the sifted flour and besan, semolina and ghee in a large bowl and mix well with your fingers, until it looks like crumble. This can be done in a food processor.
Make a stiff dough with milk, adding a little at a time. This can be made in a food processor. The dough must be stiff.
Break into small, golf ball size portions and roll into balls. Flatten balls a little either between your palms or with your knuckles.
Heat oil for deep frying in a wok or kadhai and fry the flattened balls, on low-medium heat, until they are golden. They must not be fried in a hurry in hot ghee. They must be cooked through, on low heat and should be crisp.
While these are frying, chop pistachio and almonds into small shreds. You can do this by hand, using a sharp knife (this takes a long time) or chop them in a nut chopper*. Dry fry chopped nuts in a wok in 1 tsp. of ghee, for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Keep aside.
Drain the fried balls on a kitchen paper or Newspaper and cool until they are ready to be handled. Break them up by hand into small bits, like tearing up a slice of bread.
Place these pieces in a food processor and grind to a coarse semolina like consistency. You can grate the fried balls finely, if you do not have a food processor.
If you have a large sieve, pass the crumbs through it, to remove any larger pieces. Such large pieces can be ground again, until all crumbs are of uniform, coarse semolina like consistency. Place them in a large bowl.
Add fried nuts, cardamoms and nutmeg to this mix.
Melt 1/2 cup of ghee in a wok and stir fry milk powder for a minute or two, on low-medium heat. Add to the crumbs in large bowl. Mix well.
Melt 5 tbs. or 75 ml ghee, add jagerry/gur and let them melt together, on medium heat, until it bubbles. Add to everything else in the bowl. Stir with a spoon first (hot gur is at high temperature and can burn your hand) and then mix it well with your fingers.
Pick up a small handfuls of this mix with your fingers while still warm and press into round balls between your two palms. Do this by pressing and rolling. The mix looks flaky but if you press firm enough, it is not difficult to press it into balls. If you have an implement to make meat balls**, use this to make the laddoos.
roll in poppy seeds placed on a plate.
Allow to cool completely, then store in an airtight container/box.
Serve with hot tea or coffee, as a snack or after an Indian meal.
Notes
*A nut chopper is like an old fashioned onion chopper like implement, where you put the nuts in a small container provided with it and hit hard repeatedly. The chopper blades will do the rest. Continue until required sizes are reached
**A meat ball maker consists of two hollow spoon like halves of a metal ball, on scissor like handles. You pick the stuff you want to make a ball of directly by the spoon end and press hard. Remove anything sticking to the outside of the ball, open and you have a perfect ball every time.
