Shakkar Pare/Shankar Pali/ Sweet Fries

I hope you had a great Halloween. I was glad it fell on a weekend. We carved pumpkins, went trick or treating and handed out candies to the neighborhood kids. Every Halloween I realize that there are so  many kids in the community. I guess it's the one occassion when they all come out in hordes. We had a great time. Now Diwali is right around the corner and I am waiting for it eagerly. I am going to add another Diwali staple recipe today- "Shakkar Pare/Shankarpali". These are loved by everyone at home. Every year I contemplate whether I should make it, but it always makes its way to the top of the wish list. A friend had given me the basic recipe which I have experimented with for the last couple of years. This is an easy recipe, except for the fact that its time consuming to fry all the little shakkar pare. But it's totally worth it.

Ingredients
1/2 -1 cup clarified butter/ghee
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
all purpose flour/ maida - enough to knead dough
oil to fry

Method
Mix together the ghee, sugar and milk. Add 1/4 cup of flour at a time till you can knead it into a dough. The dough should be firm. It should not be soft, else it will absorb a lot of oil when you fry it. Roll out about a 2-3 inch ball of dough into a round of about 2-3 mm thickness. The rolled out dough shouldn't be so  thin that its transparent. If its too thin, the fried shakkar pare/shankarpali will be hard. Then cut the rolled out dough into diamond shaped shakkar pare/shankarpali. Heat the oil and then fry all the shakkar pare/shankarpali till they are well browned. Let it cool and store in an airtight container. These will last a couple of weeks and do not need to be stored in the fridge.

Tips
I have experimented with various proportions of ghee and also substituted oil for ghee, but the best results are obtained when you use equal measures of ghee, sugar and milk. To cut the dough into diamond pieces, cut it into parallel strips, then cut those diagonally to make the diamond shaped shakkar pare/shankarpali. You can sprinkle some powdered sugar over the warm, fried shakkar pare/shankarpali if you want to sweeten them further. To determine if the oil is hot enough, put in a small piece of dough and if it comes up immediately, the oil is hot enough.