Dinka laddu (Indian candy truffles)

Dinka - what a weird ingredient... I couldn't find a wikipedia entry called 'dinka' but I did find something that i believe is dinka: Wikipedia entry
My mom made this laddu and I've attempted to capture her process below.   Dinka is only used in sweets in India but upon seeing it and tasting it I can definitely see huge potential for this ingredient in savoury dishes.

The below recipe should yield 15 or so small truffles or laddus

Indegredients:
1 pack of Edible Gum (Dinka) (100gm)
1/3 cup almonds
1/3 cup walnuts
8 dry dates (kharik)
1/3rd cup dry coconut
1 tbsp poppy seeds
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1/2 tbsp ghee
1 tbsp brown sugar (or gul - jageree)
2 tbsp honey

1) Toast all nuts and coconuts in a pan - grind in a food processor - no chunks remaining.
2) heat the ghee in a pan put some of the gum in the ghee and sautee till it puffs up (it becomes white and puffy- no longer translucent)- once it's puffy remove into a plate and put aside. Repeat this till you have puffed up all the gum granules.  Only put few crystals of gum in the heated ghee at a time.  It'll take 5-10 turns depending on size of pan...  you'll go through a few spoons of ghee.
3) put ground nut mixture with the puffs and sugar  into a food processor and grind into a paste - do in batches if necessary
4) put honey into the mixture and some ghee if necessary and form into balls (truffles) - if you don't have honey use some other binder like marmalade or jam..
5) if you want coat it with toasted coconut or something other item

Kultha che pitlah (Marathi dish which is a rou of a certain bean - horse gram)

Kulith: Wikipedia entry for Kulith
This is a regional dish from the Kokan region of Maharashtra (State where Mumbai is located) - this is the region encompassing the coast south of Bombay and north of Goa.
I believe this is a poor man's dish - a basic roue of oil and the flour of the kulith bean - you eat it with rice and it's amongst the yummiest comfort foods ever. Warning it has  a very distinctive taste.

Indegredients:
2 tbsp oil
4 cloves of garlic chopped
2 chillis (if using jalapeno or hotter deseed one of the chillis)
3 Kokum petals (again a very regional kokani indegredient): Wikipedia entry for kokum
1/2  teasp mustard seeds
1/2  teasp cumin seeds
pinch asotifeda (hing)
1/4 teasp red chilli powder
1/4 teasp turmeric
2 tbsp yogurt
4 heaping tbsp of kulith flour
for each tbsp of flour use 1/2 cup water
1 tbsp of yogurt

Process
1) Heat oil on medium heat and do a fodni of the mustard, cumin, hing, chilli powder, turmeric, garlic, chillis
(once oil is heated drop in the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, hing, let it sizzle once u smell stuff then add in turmeric, chili powder, garlic and chillis - take off heat so stuff doesn't burn - toss everything in oil for 2-3 min)

2) Add in kulith flour and blend into the oil - keep stirring on medium heat for 5 - 6 min. The kulith will form little balls with the oil.

3) heat up the water in a kettle and slowly add 1/2 cup at a time and blend in the kulith so the balls of flour dissolve into the water.

4) Reduce heat to medium-low,  After you have a homogeneous mixture with no lumps then add the yogurt and the kokum petals

5) Simmer for 10 min on medium-low heat and serve over rice.  Add salt to taste over the rice or in your bowl - Am told that the salt acts as a de-emulsifier and it might take apart our nice consistent soupy pitlah.

Cashew chicken with Kaala masala

Made this chicken by using a recipe from Camellia Punjabi's book (pg 112).  Turned out to be pretty darn tasty but the color of my dish in no way matches the picture shown in the book.  My curry looks like a grey slurry - something out of a gulag movie rathe rthan a burnt brown shown in the book...   Well it taste great so I'll definitely be making it again.  Below is the recipe with my modifications. I have found a pet recipe peeve - in all these recipes it says sautee onions for 10 min or 5 min!  Heck no i'd be eating raw onions if I did this - i have to sautee them for almost 20-30 min to get any results.  What gas/cooktop do these authors use?
Kaala masala translates into Black masala - this is a type of spice mixture used in Maharashtra.

Since I had 1/2 the chicken I halfed some of the indegredients (some :)
Ingredients:
1 1/2 lb boneless chicken breast - cubed into small pieces (ask the butcher to do this to save you time)
1/2 cup of dry grated coconut (you can use fresh if you have it) - make sure you don't use the sweetened dry
6 large garlic cloves
1in piece of ginger - minced
2 tbsp coriander seeds
1 teasp cumin seeds
2 dried red chillies (so the book says use kashmiri chilies - I use whatever crap dried red chilies I got from indian store - I think this is my culprit for no color to my gravy)
4 cloves
2 in cinamon stick
4 oz cashews (I used 1/2 a cup) - use non roasted, non salted, shelled
1 large onion - finely diced
oil

1) Heat a large pan on low-medium heat (4) , once heated throw in dry coconut, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, ginger, garlic, red chilies, cloves, cinamon. After 5 min add  1/2 of the cashews.Let the coconut toast (becomes brown).  After coconut is brown take pan off heat and let it cool for 10 min. Put this mixture in a blender / food processor and make into fine paste.
2) Add oil to pan and throw in the 1 onion finely diced - let it cook for 20 min till brown.  Add the diced onion into same blender as step 1 and blend into step 1 paste.
The recipe calls for adding the onion in step 1 but i found my coconut would burn before the onion cooked so I separated it.
3) Separately using a coffee grinder or mortar/pestle grind the remaining cashews into a fine powder and mix with litte water to form a paste/slurry and set aside.
4) In large pan over medium  heat  - heat some oil (oil enough to coat the bottom of pan in a thin layer) - add mixture from steps 1&2. Let it simmer for 10-15 min.
5) Add in the cashew slurry from step 3 and let it cook 5 more min.
6) Add the chicken and mix into gravy - cover and let chicken cook - 10 min
7) Add 1 1/2 cup water and let the curry simmer - add salt to taste
8) pour into serving dish and throw some whole cashes on top (roasted or non roasted cashews)

As I said it doesn't look all that great as my chilis didn't give off any color so there are no pics.