Bajiya

Bajiya is one of our favourite teatime treats. Making them of course involves a lot of steps; you have to make the filling, you have to make the dough, roll the dough, cut the dough and fill the dough, and finally fry them.

We’ve tried to make the steps as detailed and as beginner friendly as possible. Also, we can assure you that it actually sounds harder than it really is.

Makes: 20

Making the filling

Ingredients:

• 1 tuna can
• 2 onions
• 1/3 tsp. grated ginger
• 7 curry leaves
• 3 inch piece of raanbaa
• ¼ githeyo mirus (or to taste)
• 3 inch piece of cinnamon
• 4 cardamom pods
• 2 ½ tsp. sugar (or to taste)
• 2/3 tsp. salt (or to taste)
• 3 tsp. chicken curry powder
• ½ lime (or to taste)
• 2 tbsp. oil

Instructions:

1. Take one of your onions and slice it very thinly. If you first divide the onion into four parts and then slice every quarter separately, that would make things easier for you later on when we get to the mixing part.
2. Slice the githeyo mirus thinly and mince four curry leaves.
3. In a bowl and using your fingers, mix together the onions, githeyo mirus, grated ginger, lime and curry leaves. You’ll have to really squash and squeeze it until the onion releases it’s juices and becomes soft. You might also need to wear some gloves to protect your fingers from the githeyo mirus.
4. Add in the tuna, chicken curry powder and salt. Since different curry powder brands vary in taste and strength, you might want to add it gradually to the mix so that you can adjust the taste according to your preference; you might want to adjust the lime, salt and githeyo mirus too. Once the mixture is to your preference, set it aside.
5. We are now moving on to the second stage of making the filling, and we are going to begin it by slicing the remaining onion thinly.
6. Heat the oil in a pot and add the sliced onions, raanbaa, remaining curry leaves, cinnamon stick and cardamom pods with their ends snipped off. Cook until the onions are soft and begin to take on a nice golden brown colour.
7. Add the tuna mixture along with the sugar, mix well, and cook for three to five minutes. Keep the heat on low to medium, and do keep stirring.
8. Once the cooking part is over, let the mixture cool down.

Making the dough

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 2/3 tsp. salt (or to taste)
• 4 tbsp. oil
• 24 tbsp. warm water

Instructions:

1. In a large bowl mix together the flour and salt.
2. Add in the oil and use your fingers to mix it together with the flour.
3. Gradually add in the water, a couple of tablespoons at a time; also, every time you add in the water mix well using your fingers.
4. Knead the dough until it is soft and elastic. It shouldn’t be sticking to your fingers and it also shouldn’t be dry.
5. Divide the dough into 5 equally sized balls. Also, do keep a small piece of dough aside; we are going to use that later for testing the oil temperature.
6. Take a dough ball and using a rolling pin, roll it into a circular shape. A six to seven inch diameter circle would do.
7. Use a knife to cut the circle into four equal parts.
8. Repeat this for the rest of the dough balls. Take care when setting aside the dough pieces that you cut. If they touch each other there’s a chance they will stick together.

Assembling the bajiya

Instructions:

1. Place one of the dough pieces on your palm; the round edge should face towards you.
2. Place 2 tsp. of the filling in the centre. Also, remember to remove the cardamom pods, cinnamon and raanbaa from the mixture before you do this.
3. Fold the right side edge over the filling. It would reach somewhere a little beyond the centre. Dip your finger into a little water and run your finger along the edge.
4. Dip a finger into some water again, and this time run it over the edge on the left and fold it again so that the filling is now fully enclosed. Your piece of dough should now look like a cone with the filling inside.
5. Wet the remaining edge by doing what you did before and fold it in. Press gently so that it forms a nice triangular shape and pinch the edges to make sure they are closed.
6. Repeat the steps above until you run out of dough and filling.

Frying the bajiya

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups oil

Instructions:

1. Heat the oil in a pot and drop in the little piece of dough you kept aside.
2. Wait until you see bubbles forming around the dough piece. When the bubbles become rapid, gently place the bajiyas in the oil. Don’t put all the bajiyas in there at once, fry them in batches; we did ours in four.
3. Fry the bajiyas until they look golden brown. You might need to flip them to make sure they cook evenly.
4. When you remove the bajiyas from the oil, put them in a colander or something of that sort so that the excess oil will be drained off.

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