Diwali, from a Kannadiga kitchen

What Diwali specialties does a Kannadiga household dish out? A visit to two households – Prof Ranganath Malagi’s and Ashok Nagarhalli’s – in Vastrapur gave us the answer.

Women of both the families came together to prepare chiroti and shakkarpaare. “For chiroti the sooji (rava) should be very fine which is called jheeno ravo in Gujarat and chiroti rava in Karnataka,” says Nagarhalli.

Malagi, who learnt making these items from her mother-in-law, lends us some valuable tips. “It’s important that ghee and rava be kneaded well for consistent dough. Keep this mixture aside for 4-5 hours, during which it will absorb the moisture from air,” says Malagi. “This process makes chiroti crunchy and fluffy after frying.”
To make chiroti even more sumptuous, Nagarhalli suggests three rotis (flattened bread of rava and ghee mixture) stacked together, and then fried.

“This makes the delicacy more crunchy and fluffy, with layers.  “Here, we are preparing chiroti with two chapattis with ghee in the middle. To make it crunchier, we add one more ghee-laced roti on top. The dough is folded, cut into strips and then fried,” says Nagarhalli.

For shakkarpaare, it is important that the chapatti rolled out from maida (refined flour) and ghee mixture is of optimum thickness.
“Flatten the dough hard for crunchier grub, and go easy on it if you want them to be munchy,” says Nagarhalli. 

For the diamond shapes, cut the chapatti into two sets of opposing parallel lines. The resultant will be the diamond shape,” she adds.