Kaju Pista Roll

Kaju Pista Roll


Lately I have been quite tired and resorted to more convenient meals that are quite stereotypical as well. That does not mean I have been sticking ready to eat stuff in a microwave, just resorted to idli and dosas with vegetable loaded sambar and chutney. Anyway, despite the lack of energy, I had been craving kaju pista roll for a week. Oh yes, kaju katli would have been easier but it has to be kaju pista roll. If I was in India or even London, I could have bought it from a nice shop but up here, have no choice but to make them yourself. So next time, I hope my craving is for something even simpler. Oh well, this is actually a simple recipe and it is only rolling and bringing it to shape that needs time and attention. In hind sight, I could have made wee rounds using kaju dough, stuffed pista and made into peda shaped sweets instead of rolls, but hey, rolls is what I fancied! I followed Sanjeev Kapoor’s recipe, mostly but learned a few tricks like holding back some sugar syrup etc. I chose to roast the nuts in oven simply because I lacked the energy to do so standing in front of the stove, but you could if you like. Just ensure the colour of the nuts does not change, just make them a wee bit crisp. So, here is the recipe...

1 cup cashew nuts
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup pistachios
1 tablespoon sugar

Preheat oven to 100degC and roast pista and cashew separately for 10 minutes. Cool them completely

Grind the cashew to fine powder

Grind pista to fine powder along with one tablespoon sugar

Add quarter cup water to the sugar and heat it to form syrup of one string consistency (it should form a string between your thumb and index finger when you put some on your finger to test)

Allow this to cool slightly and add almost all of it to the cashew powder to form a dough. I retained about a tablespoon of syrup thinking it may be too much but it came handy once the cashew dough had dried out

Divide the dough into two halves and roll one half with a rolling pin while placing the dough on greaseproof paper. Keep correcting edges so you roughly roll a rectangle

Leave half inch gap from edge and place a teaspoon on pista powder

Roll this and cut from remaining rectangle dough. It will appear flaky, but trust me, you can play with it

Now put your childhood skills of playing with clay to use by rolling this to a cylindrical shape and keep aside

Repeat the same until the end of the rectangle. By this time the second half of the dough may be very firm, add the retained syrup and mix and repeat the process

Then cut each long cylinder into smaller ones of desired size. I made about 19 rolls, each an inch long

Needless to say, enjoy!