MAWA-NARIYAL GUJHIA /मावा-नारियल गुझिया
Holi, the festival of colours bring positive vibes along with the cheerfulness of the spring season. With the onset of this festival, the idling habits of winters are completely gone. The Holi festival is one of the prominent festivals of India. Anyways the festivals in India are a great way to celebrate food and culture. A number of traditional sweets and other mouth-watering goodies are get to start preparing many days before the Holi in the common households. Ghujia or Gujhia such sweetmeat which is synonymous with Holi. This is a deep-fried Indian pastry with the fillings of mewa, mawa or sometimes the roasted suji/semolina
To make the gujhia firstly, the all-purpose flour dough is prepared with an addition of sufficient amount of ghee. In this way, a shortcrust pastry dough is ready to spread into the small disks. The mawa(khoya) is roasted with several nuts and sugar is added to it. This mix is filled into the pastry disk and sealed with the fingers or a special mould. Making the gujhia with hands is really a culinary art. Finally, this pastry is deep-fried till golden brown. Some people dip this pastry into the sugar syrup to make it sweeter. Not wasting much time, sharing the step by step recipe with pics below
INGREDIENTS REQUIRED FOR GHUJIA STUFFING
• Mawa/Khoya – 200 gms
• Fresh coconut/nariyal – 1 cup(grated)
• Finely chopped mixed nuts( chironji, almonds, cashews, pistachio, raisins/kishmish etc) 1 cup
• Powdered sugar – 250 gms /to taste
INGREDIENTS FOR THE DOUGH
• Maida/Refined flour – 2 cups
• Ghee – 2 tbsp or more if required
• Water – as required to make a tight dough
• Powdered sugar – 2 tsp
OTHER INGREDIENTS
• Oil or Ghee for deep frying – Sufficient enough
Maida/refined flour for slurry- 1 tbsp
• Water to make a slurry – 1/2 tbsp
How to make a slurry
Mix maida and water in a bowl. This will help to stick the dough
HOW TO MAKE THE MAVA-NARIYAL STUFFING
1- Take a saucepan or a kadahi and add mawa/khoya and roast/bhunow it till the colour changes to light brown. When done, transfer this to a mixing bowl
2- In the same pan add chopped nuts and grated nariyal/fresh coconut
3- Bhunow/dry roast them until the colour changes to light brown.
4- Next, add roasted mava to the nuts. Mix well
5-. Switch off the flame now and after 2 minutes add powdered sugar
6- Mix everything by breaking the hard lumps. The powdered sugar will soon get dissolved into the hot mix
7- Transfer this stuffing to another bowl. The MAVA-NARIYAL stuffing is ready to fill into gujhia
METHOD TO MAKE A DOUGH
1- Take a broad bowl and add maida/refined flour. Add ghee and sugar and rub with fingers to make a sand-like texture (shortening/मोयन)
- Sugar helps to get a golden brown colour to the ghujia while frying
2- When you collect some flour in the hand, this must make a ball, otherwise add a little more ghee
3- Add little water at a time and collect the dough
* Don’t work too much on the dough. This must be a little bit tight. (we need a shortcrust pastry here)
4- Cover the dough with a wet cloth and keep at rest for 2-3 hours
* Keeping at rest for long time results in an elastic dough which is good for the crisp gujia. The stuffing does not come out through an elastic dough
5- Divide the dough into equal-sized balls. Roll it without the dry flour. Take a bowl or round cutter to get equal-sized circles
6- Apply the slurry on the corners with a finger and add 2 tsp stuffing
7- Cover the stuffing so that one corner sticks to the other. Now pinch the corners to seal them. This will make a beautiful pattern
* you can seal the corners with a fork also
8- Add 4-5 ghujias in the medium hot oil. When one side is golden, carefully flip to other side
* Avoid too much turning and stay gentle with them otherwise the gujia will open, resulting the stuffing to come out
9- Deep fry all the gujia at low-medium hot oil till they get a golden colour
YOU MIGHT ALSO LOVE SOME MORE TRADITIONAL INDIAN RECIPES TO MAKE ON HOLI
SAFFRON SWEET RICE/KESARIA MEETHE CHAWAL
PYAZ MATAR KI KACHODI/RAJASTHANI PYAZ KI KACHODI
CHAANAAR PAYESH/ PANEER KI KHEER
