Butternut Squash Gharge

The grocery scene in my house has been quite exciting lately. Husband I have been going to the Saturday Farmer's Market like a ritual (I know, everyone experiencing horrific winter this year will be jealous - I sympathize with you all). It makes my weekend to come home with bags full of fresh produce. We also just signed up for CSA last week. Oh, I can't wait to share the details next week when I get my second box of goodies! Anyway, trying to consume all the fresh fruits and veggies, I forgot all about a small butternut squash bought from the grocery store a few weeks back. Good thing it doesn't go bad very fast, but it was about time the squash was put to use. San Diego weather hasn't exactly been calling for soup, so I used the squash in lieu of pumpkin in two of my favorite Indian dishes - one sweet (Gharge) and one spicy/savory (Parathas). I'll share the recipe I'm partial towards - the sweet, of course :).

Gharge are traditional Maharashtrian sweet puris made with pumpkin. The puris are not cloyingly sweet or dessert like - so they can be snacked on (like I did in one go on half the batch I prepared...shhh). The recipe calls for very few simple ingredients. And these puris don't require rolling out dough with a rolling pin, which makes them easy to prepare. My mom used to make gharge for after school snacks. They store well even at room temperature, so we could enjoy them all week long. Butternut squash is a close relative of pumpkin in terms of taste and texture, so I thought why not? And the gharge turned out just fantastic! With the sweetness from jaggery and the aroma of cardamom, you couldn't tell the switch between pumpkin and butternut squash. This recipe can use any similar squash, I suppose.

Butternut Squash Gharge

Ingredients:
2 Cups grated butternut squash
1 Cup grated jaggery
2 Tablespoons ghee
1 1/4 - 1 1/2 Cups whole wheat flour
1/2 Teaspoon cardamom powder
Pinch of salt
Vegetable oil or ghee for frying

• Combine ghee, jaggery, and butternut squash in a kadhai/work and cook on medium heat. The moisture from squash will be enough to cook it thoroughly. Cook the water down until you are left with a soft, moist mixture.
• Stir in cardamom powder and a pinch of salt.
• Once the mixture cools to touch, start incorporating wheat flour until you have a pliable, non-sticky dough. I used about 1 1/4 cups flour. You can add more if you need to. I liked the sweetness achieved with this much amount of flour.
• Let the dough rest for 5-10 minutes.
• Make small lime size dough balls. With 1 1/4 cups flour, you'll get ~20 medium size puris.
• To make the puris, grease a thick plastic bag with a little bit of ghee. I use ziplock which works perfectly. Apply some ghee on your finger tips as well, and pat each dough ball evenly into a not too thin puri. You can lay raw puris on a plate before getting ready to fry them. They won't stick.
• Fry them on medium heat in vegetable oil until golden brown. Take them out on a paper towel to wick away excess oil. A more decadent version of these puris would be fried in ghee. I wanted to save my precious home-made ghee for other things :). 

Gharge won't puff up like the regular puris, but they are wonderfully flaky. They will be soft straight out of the fryer, but the crust will get crispy once slightly cooled, and the inside will be soft and moist. Yum!
You can enjoy gharge right away, or store them in an air tight container for about a week.