Christmas in Goa, my family’s home state, is not complete without us making Goan sweets known as ‘Kuswar.’
Growing up in Mumbai, I remember my granny and aunties from my mom’s side gathering 2 weeks before Christmas to make a ton of kuswar like neureos (kinda like an empanada with a sweet coconut filling), channa doss (made out of chickpea flour and ghee), kokad (made out of coconut), and of course kulkuls.
Kulkuls are nostalgic to me. I wanted to share this recipe as this was the only sweet where the elders invited us kids to participate in its making.
It was the job of my cousins and I to pinch out the dough into tiny balls, and then roll it out on the fork tine.
My grandma loved the kulkuls to be small and tightly rolled “just like “little sea shells on Calangute beach” as she would say.
INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 cups All purpose flour
1 Egg yolk
1 tablespoon cold butter, cubed
Pinch of salt
3 tablespoons sugar
3/4 cup coconut milk
Canola oil
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
Powdered cardamom (optional)
Dough
Mix the sugar and butter together.
Combine the flour, egg yolk, salt and sugar.
Fold in the coconut milk and knead the dough till smooth.
Pinch out a little dough and make it into small marble-sized balls.
Take a fork (or a gnocchi maker) and rub canola oil on the back of the tines.
Take one of the balls of dough and press it down on the backside of the tine. Roll it off with your thumb so it looks like a curl. Make these curls as tight as you can without compressing their outer ridges.
Heat oil till it starts to bubble. Drop the curled kulkuls, a handful at a time, into the hot oil and fry them till they gently brown or float to the top.
Pull the kulkuls out and let them cool on paper towels.
Sugar syrup
Boil the sugar and water till it looks syrupy. My mother loved adding cardamom powder to the syrup at this time, but that’s optional.
Drizzle on top of kulkuls. When it cools, the kulkuls look like they are covered with snow.
