Somas / Karanchi

    In Maharashtra, Deepwali is literally synonymous with making sweets and snacks such as Somas, Shankarpalaes. While the latter is unique to the maratha region, the former is something we do make in South India. We call it Somas and they call it Karanchi. Though the stuffing we put in can have variants. I am presenting the Iyer Somas recipe here.

Ingredients:

Outer Cover:

            Maida - 2 Cups
            Rava - 4 tablespoon
            Salt a pinch
            oil - 3 tablespoon

 Stuffing:       

           Roasted Chana dhal - 2 cups
           Sugar - 1.5 Cups
           Grated Coconut roasted to fine aroma - 1 Cup ( Optional)
            Elaichi - 1 teaspoon for flavor

Way to go

• Take the ingredients meant for outer cover and mix them all with very little water to make a poor like pliable but hard dough. Set it aside for 30 mts to an hour. 

Stuffing

• Now to get prepare the stuffing, grind the roasted chana dhal to a coarse powder ( neither too fine nor too coarse). 
• Once done, grind the sugar separately along with Elaichi to a fine powder.
•  Mix well the ground chana dhal, sugar powder and roasted coconut in a bowl. This would be our dry stuffing for our Somas.

Making Somas

• Take the dough, and split them into goosebeery (arai nellikkai) sized balls ( or the size of a marble). The balls can be really small as when we roll into circles they will still make a nice Somas.
•  Press the balls one by one with rolling pin and roll them to nice thin circles. You need to dust them with Maida frequently during the rolling process. 
• Once rolled into circles, fold them into semi circle and seal them half way through, and with the open side, place in the filling to the extent it can hold. Once done, seal the entire edges to make a closed semi circle.
• With a fork, press the edges to make the design as shown in the image.
• Likewise ready all the dough balls to the desired shape. 

                                             

• As you do it, you can also heat enough refined oil in a Kadai. Once the oil is hot enough, reduce it to medium flame and fry the somas until it is well roasted and crispy. 

                                                

• Note: If the oil is too hot, Somas will turn brown soon but will not get cooked properly. So keep the oil in medium flame to get the right taste and flavor.