Crunchy baked neoreo, baked nevri

Buttery baked nevri, baked karanji

This is an original recipe for crisp, buttery, and tasty baked neoreo, that have an additional decorative touch to them. Traditionally, these delicious turnovers, Goan neories, also called nevri or karanji, are deep fried. Nowadays, with more and more people looking for healthy options especially when it comes to sweets and desserts, the baked version is also becoming popular.

There are several varieties of karanjis, some even dipped in sugar syrup after frying them. In Maharashtra the covering of the baked karanji has a multi-layered texture and involves applying a generous slathering of creamed cornflour and ghee between the layers of pastry dough.

My original recipe however has a crunchy, flaky outer covering that’s close to pie dough but has a lower butter content. As for the coconut filling, it’s moist and sweet. And since it’s made with fresh grated coconut, these baked neoreo or nevri have a shorter shelf life, just around 3 to 4 days. After that, you could store them in the fridge. That is, if they last that long. They’re so amazingly tasty, they’ll be gone in no time.

The decorative touch I mentioned earlier involves shaping the scraps of dough cut off from around the sealed edge of the neoreo into interesting shapes like flowers and angels. These can be stuck to the tops of the nevris by moistening their underside with a drop of water.

Our platter of traditional Christmas sweets wouldn’t be complete without nevris. So why not add these scrumptious ones to yours this Christmas season?

Ingredients

For outer covering

1 ¼ cup (160g) all-purpose flour (maida)

3 ½ tbsp (50g) chilled, salted butter

1 ½ tbsp powdered sugar

Chilled water – 2 to 3 tbsp

For the Filling

¾ cup fresh grated coconut

6 ½ tbsp (80g) granulated sugar (powdered)

3 tbsp milk powder

2 tbsp milk

1 tsp ground cardamom

¼ cup chopped nuts (cashewnuts, almonds)

1 ½ tsp ghee or butter

¼ tsp salt

Procedure

1. Slice the chilled butter into fine slivers and then mix these into the flour first with a fork and then with your fingertips till the flour mix looks like coarse breadcrumbs. Mix in the powdered sugar.
2. Add the chilled water, a little at a time, till the dough can just be gathered together into a tight ball. Don’t knead the dough.
3. Pat the dough into a disc, cover with clingfilm or put it into a sealable plastic bag and transfer it into the fridge for around an hour.
4. Next, start preparing the filling by sauteing the mixed nuts in ghee in a non-stick pan. Remove the nuts into a dish and chop them up after they’ve cooled down.
5. To the same pan, add the grated coconut, ground sugar and cardamom, milk powder, milk, and salt and stir it all up.
6. Cook this mix till it is a slightly loose and moist mix. Let it cool. (It will become a little drier as it cools.) Mix in the chopped nuts.
7. Take the chilled dough out of the fridge, and break it into 8 to 12 small balls.
8. Roll each one between sheets of parchment or butter paper or using a light dusting of flour. Roll the dough into an elongated shape (don’t roll it too thin), place around a tablespoon of filling on the lower half of the rolled-out dough, moisten the edge of this lower half with a little water, fold the other half over the filling, and press the curved edges of the semi-circle shaped karanji or nevri.
9. Trim the edge with a pastry cutter. Crimp the edges of the neureo with a fork. Save the scraps of dough for embellishing the neureo.
10. Make small interesting shapes like five-petalled small flowers, and angels, and attach these to the top of the nevris with a drop of water. Transfer the neoreo to a very lightly greased baking tray.
11. Chill the shaped neoreo in the fridge for around 15 minutes.
12. In the meanwhile, preheat your oven to 180C (350 F).
13. Bake the nevris for around 17 to 25 minutes (depending on their size or your oven) till they start changing colour on top, feel firm to the touch and are light brown underneath.
14. Cool on a wire rack. Put them into an airtight container and after 3 – 4 days, store them in the fridge.

Enjoy!