Gujia – Holi Special

“You don’t know what is gujia?” screeched my friend in surprise…something like that advertisement of yesteryears “Yeh PSPO nahin janta!”. This was at least about 6 to 7 years ago. It was then decided that whenever gujias were made next at her place and if we were in the same city I would get a sampling. That has still not happened and I am not sure if she remembers it now too…

Gujia

From what she explained I understood that it is very similar to the karanji made in Maharashtrian homes during diwali the major difference being the filling. Karanjis are stuffed with dry coconut, nuts, poppy seeds and nuts whereas for gujias the primary ingredient in the filling is khoya or mawa.

A couple of days back was Holi and we were invited to a friend’s place for Holi, so I decided to try this recipe for the first time. A bunch of guinea pigs what more invitation would I require to try out a new recipe…

I used the following proportions and recipe…however since I had never seen gujias the first feedback I got was that they were very big and had too much of filling, so I could have actually made a bigger batch using the same proportions…I actually landed up with some extra dough which I used up by making puris.

And much against my husband’s and friend Maneesha’s advice I baked a batch of the initial four I made, they were definitely more healthy being low-cal but they didn’t have the golden colour nor the traditional taste so I deep fried the rest of the lot trying to turn a deaf ear to the voices in my head screeching ‘high-calorie’, ‘artery-clogging’, ‘sinful’ so on and so forth.

Ingredients

½ kg refined flour,

200 grams ghee,

A pinch of salt,

Water for kneading,

300 grams khoya or mawa,

150 grams desiccated coconut,

1 ½ cup of sugar,

1 tsp of powdered green cardamom seeds,

2 ½ tbsp lightly roasted poppy seeds,

25 grams charoli or chironji,

2 tbsps of raisins,

Oil for deep frying

Method

Rub the ghee into the flour and sprinkle a pinch of salt. Knead it using water into a tough dough. Keep it covered.

Roast the khoya on a low flame till it turns light brown in colour, then fold in the dessicated coconut, sugar, roasted poppy seeds, charoli and raisins. Mix well till the sugar dissolves and switch off the gas. Sprinkle and mix in the cardamom powder.

Divide the dough and the filling into equal number of portions. Roll the dough ball into a small puri (it shouldn’t be too thick nor too thin). Place one portion on the filling on one semi-circle. Wet your finger with some water and apply to the edge of the entire disc. Lift the other semi-circle to cover the other half and for a covered semi-circle. Press the edges and then using your thumb and index finger roll the edges in a pinching motion to form a rope like edge. This was not as difficult as I thought it would be. In case you find it difficult you can use the moulds available in the market for making the gujias.

Heat the oil and then lower the heat. Slip in the gujias in the hot oil and fry on low flame till golden brown. Drain on absorbent paper and store in an airtight container after it is completely cool.