Trade Secret
Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 11:36PM Ask google questions like
How to build a missile defense system
How do you do open heart surgery
or even
How to understand women and there will be answers.
Ask it how to make Sohan Papdi (try son papdi, soan papdi, etc.) and you get only one answer..
The same freaking answer that is a copy paste job across a dozen or so food websites. (I thought this was some freak of mother internet!). There is one more soul out there that is equally surprised by it ..
No, you dont have to waste your time. I will also cut and paste it here for you!
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Patisa (Soan Papdi)
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup gramflour
1 1/4 cup plain flour (maida)
250 gms. ghee
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cup water
2 tbsp. milk
1/2 tsp. cardamom seeds crushed coarsely
2 tsp. charmagaz (combination of 4 types of seeds) refer glossary
4" squares cut from a thin polythene sheet
Method:
Sift both flours together.
Heat ghee in a heavy saucepan.
Add flour mixture and roast on low till light golden.
Keep aside to cool a little, stirring occasionally.
Prepare syrup simultaneously.
Make syrup out of sugar, water and milk as shown in introduction.
Bring syrup to 2 1/2 thread consistency.
Pour at once into the flour mixture.
Beat well with a large fork till the mixture forms threadlike flakes.
Pour onto a greased surface or thali and roll to 1" thickness lightly.
Sprinkle the charmagaz seeds and elaichi and gently press down with palm.
Cool, cut into 1" squares, wrap individually into square pieces of thin plastic sheet.
Store in airtight container.
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There, armed with that recipe, you can make it! Right? Wrong.
Somehow this does not give you the same son Papdi that the street vendor sold us when we were kids. He would ring his bell and show up with this push cart with a glass jar (the lid would be wrapped in cloth to get the jar a tight seal). For 25 paisa (what is quarter of a rupee = a quarter of 2.5 cents) he would take a square piece of newsprint, make a cone out of it and put enough of the cottony white "son papdi" into the cone and give you.
Hmmmmmmmmm.. sooooo yummy! Recently thanks to Balaji we found a place in Chennai where they sell the cottony stuff compressed into little cubes and a box of this with around 40 cubes sells for a dollar. By todays standards that is a decent price and it has the same taste and manages to bring back some amazing memories!
Here is the thing though. How do you make the stuff? This is not available in any Indian store in the bay area. We only get the Barfi's!
If you know, please give me a recipe. something with enough details about the beating process to make the thin needles!
I would realllllllllly appreciate it and you know I will try it and there will be a videoblog of "the making of Son Papdi"
.
cooking, recipe, sohan papdi, son papdi, sweets
Reader Comments (8)
I once saw the process of soan papdi making in the back kitchen of a sweet stall. When the sugar syrup comes to a string consistency (last stage, brittle), two men took the mass out and stretched it out many times. The two sat facing each other, stretched out the mass once, then the guy on one side gave his end to the other side picked up the middle and both stretched it again, this went on many more times till needle like strands came out of the sugar mass. Its almost like folding a saree where two people hold the ends and one of them gives one end to the other, picks up the middle and fold it again. Same process just that here they kept pulling it many more times. The sugar mass is quite hot so they kept putting their hand in cold water in between pulls. I guess the key is to pull in that state till needle like strands appear and that would happen only when its pulled hot. I hope the explanation is not confusing.
anon.. wish you had put your name there!
thank you. You have confirmed all my suspicions.
did a simple test. put a small pinch of mysorepak powder into a cup of water. also put another small pinch of soan papdi into a cup of water. The mysorepak(whose ingredients contain flour, ghee, sugar) left a sediment at the bottom. The soan papdi did not!! Ergo, Soan papdi must be pure sugar or have <10% flour content if any..
The process you are refering to is very similar to noodle making that they show in chinese cooking programs in the food network.
Since I have no other male volunteer in this house and none who can handle heat, this will take some time to try.. possibly next weekend..
thanks again.
:)
Rent a cotton candy machine and try it :-)
I thought soan papdi had a touch of besan in it.
"patisa" is not the same as "soan papdi"
The recipe that you have posted is for patisa, which is a burfee kind of a mithai!
Mouth watering post. I got reminded of the Pavlovian experiment. The bell et al !
Hi there. Thanks for the info about the recipe... i tried it and it turned out like hell!!! i was thinking i went wrong somewhere.
Well it is not son or soan, it is called sohan papdi. so next time you google, try this name. none of the recipies will tell you the way to get it right i believe.
c dragon beard candy, there is a video on utube.
HKF -- love beard candy
My favourite Chinese New Year food (though you sometimes find it all year round) is the Dragon Beard Candy, an ancient Chinese Emperor’s Dessert. It’s made into very sweet thin strands and sometimes filled with peanuts.
If you’ve never tried it, you simply have to! The only place I know to find this online is http://www.geocities.jp/family_hong_kong/English/Dragon_Bread_Candy_index.htm .