Rosy Cashew Chirote

Happy Diwali!!!

The first time I made chirote I idea of coloring came instantly but later thought better still would be to add food color to alternate layers. It seems like petals of a double colored flower after the frying. And that's when my husband came up with the idea of adding nuts to make a baklava like dessert. So this time, my recipe is a colored chirote with cashew nut powder mix in between layers. An Indian baklava like sweet with a milk cashew taste.

Ingredients
Oil for deep frying
for the chirote
Maida / All purpose flour - 1 cup
Rawa / Semolina - 1/4 cup
Water - 1/4 cup
Oil - 2 tbsp
Beetroot, grated - 1.5tbsp / Red food color
for applying between layers
Ghee / Butter - 2 tbsp
Cashew nut powder - 2 tbsp
for the syrup
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Water - 1/2 cup
Saffron - few strands
Lightly powder the rawa / semolina in a dry grinder. Mix together the maida / flour and the rawa in a bowl. Heat the oil and add it spoon by spoon into the flour, mixing it with a spoon all the while. Then wait for a few minutes for the oil to cool a little. Using your fingers rub the oil into the flour mixture till it resembles bread crumbs. Divide this flour into two. Take one half and add water one spoon at a time and knead into a dough. Use only 1/4 cup of water at most. To the other half of the flour add the grated beets or the food color and knead into a dough adding little water at a time. Divide the two dough into equal sized and number of balls and keep it in a bowl and cover with a lid or cling film.

Melt the ghee / butter a little and mix the cashew powder into it. Keep this aside.

Take a rolling pin and using a clean surface, roll out each ball into a thin round chapati and keep separately. When you have 3 or 4 such chapati. take a white chapati and apply the ghee and cashew nut powder all over the chapati covering the entire chapati. Cover this chapati with a red one the another one and spread the ghee and cashew nut mix like before. Place the third chapati - a white one on top of it and apply the ghee and cashew nut mix like before. Now, starting from one edge, raise this edge a little and start rolling it inward into a tight log like in a pinwheel roll. Take a sharp knife and cut off the two ends of the log. Hold the log with one hand and cut the log into half inch to 1 inch pieces, keeping the knife in a slight slant direction so the colored layers are visible. With the rolling pin flatten these pieces by rolling it out lightly. When rolled the pieces will be an oblong rectangle.

In a sauce pan, add the sugar and water and heat till a simple syrup is made. Add the saffron strands or saffron syrup and take off the heat.
Heat the oil in a kadai or pan and slowly fry the rolled out pieces one by one, gently pressing down the pieces. As it fries the layers will separate, scoop out when done and drain off on paper towels. When the oil is drained completely add the pieces one by one into the saffron infused sugar syrup and dip all sides to coat completely. Then lift off with tongs and stand it in a bowl to drain excess syrup. Continue frying all the pieces and dipping in the sugar syrup. Once the syrup is drained serve on a platter.

This recipe for Rosy Cashew Chirote is going to these events :

-  "Diwali Special" hosted by gayathriscookspot.

&

-  "Diwali Bash 2013" hosted by cooksjoy.

-  "Diwali Delicacies Event" jointly hosted by priyaeasyntastyrecipes & spicytreats

-  "Spotlight: Festival Treats" hosted by cuisinedelights