Bakharwadi – Maharashtrian spicy cocunut coriander pinwheel

Long before I tasted the now popular Chitale’s bakharwadi( it is indeed ba-khar and not bha-kar) the only taste associated with this snack was spicy, crunchy garlicky flavored deep fried goodie.
My maternal side family is fairly large. My late maternal grandmother was a top notch cook. The techniques used by her back then were almost 100 years old traditional tricks.  One of her specialty was bakharwadi. She used to make up to 5 Kgs of it during diwali. While other aunts were busy with the rest of the goodies under her watchful gaze there were a couple of things that she never let others to make. I still remember her waking up much before dawn to prepare the stuffing, finishing the chores and then sitting in the corner of large kitchen with her rolling pin and making those diamond shaped pinwheels.
I tried to re-create it in my kitchen with my age material. Ofcourse I was not attempting to match the taste but wanted to keep alive the memories.

Ingredients
for stuffing
1 cup desiccated coconut(you can used dried grated coconut) * Many use regular sev as filling too
1 cup fresh coriander leaves (no stems) finely chopped
1 tspn powdered sugar
2 tspn red chilli powder
2 tbsp crushed garlic
1/2 tspn sesame seeds
1/2 tsp poppy seeds(optional)
1 tspn coriander cumin seeds powder
1 tspn garam masala
salt to taste
for dough
1 cup All Purpose Flour/ Maida
1/4 cup Chickpea flour/ besan
salt to taste
1 tbsp Oil
water as needed


Oil for deep frying
Method
1) Mix all the ingredients for the stuffing in a bowl and set aside
2) Make a stiff dough using the flours and oil. The dough should be like puri (even drier)
3) Set the dough aside for 15 min or so
4) Heat enough oil in a wok and let it become smoking hot.
5) Reduce the flame to low and let it stand
6) Use a medium size ball of the dough and roll out a thin bread (as thin as possible)
7) Spread the stuffing on it evenly
8) Start rolling ,ensuring that you pat it evenly in each roll to release any trapped air bubbles.
9) Seal the open ends carefully.
10) Cut small rolls and set aside.
11) Deep fry them on low-medium flame until they are crunchy. Do not remove them immediately, the color changes to dark red for the stuffing (due to the coconut and coriander)
12) Remove and let it drain.




Dig in and eat until you think you have had enough 

Sending this to-
Magic Mingle – APF and Coriander Leaves.
Gayathri’s Walking Through a Memory Lane,  hosted at my space here