simple cooking: Ghevar

simple cooking: Ghevar: Ghevar is a special rajasthani sweet dish. Honestly I was introduced to it by my in laws :) Well since it was something sweet and i have t...

Ghevar

Ghevar is a special rajasthani sweet dish. Honestly I was introduced to it by my in laws :) Well since it was something sweet and i have the sweetest tooth in the whole wide world, I obviously had to totally love it...

So since its been a while i visited India, i couldn't take it anymore and i had to make it at home. So here is what you'll need to savour this delicacy...

The Stuff:

1/4th cup Ghee
1 Cup Maida - all purpose flour
5-6 cubes of Ice
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/4th cup milk
chilled water about 2 cups
regular room temprature water approx 2 cups
2 cups of Sugar
2 cups Ghee - for the deep frying

Lets get going -

Start by pouring the 1/4th cup of ghee in a large dish, add the ice cubes and whip it for about 5-7 mins with your hand. This would make the ghee turn into to absolutely soft cream. Check the texture with your hands, there should not be any granules, let it be totally soft.To your surprise the ice cubes will be absolutely neat and easy to seperate. Remove them.
Now add the flour little by little and keep mixing. Add the milk as you mix the maida. Now mix it well till the batter is smooth. Add the chilled water and the regular water slowly. Keep mixing it regularly, till the batter is liquid enough to be in pouring consistency.

Once you are sure of the consistency of the batter, add the lemon juice. Set this batter aside for a 2-3 mins while you heat up the Ghee. For Ghevars we need absolutely hot ghee, once the ghee is ready, pour in the batter one table spoon full at a time. Now wait, let the froth on top of the ghee settle, then make some space with a spoon in the center. Now pour another table spoon full.

Repeat the pouring, waiting for the froth to settle, making space in the center and then pour again - till you feel the size of your ghevar is appropriate. It will typically take about 7-10 mins per ghevar on the gas.

Once the ghevar is ready pick it up from the center whole of the ghevar with the help of  a spoon and place it on a bowl that has been set on a large plate. This would allow the extra ghee to come out in the plate.

Once you are done making all your ghevars, let them drain out the extra ghee, while you make the sugar syrup [chashni].

To make the sugar syrup take the 2 cups of sugar and pour them in a thick bottomed pan, add one cup of water to it. Let it come to boil then cook for about 7-10 mins. Once done, pour this with a spoon on your ghevars - evenly and generously. This would make them sweet. Give it some time for the chashni to settle in to the ghevars. Garnish them with pistachios, cashews & almonds - finely chopped.

And now all that's left is to dig in... :) Enjoy...!! Below is the pic of the ghevars i made today... :)

Rawa Laddoo's

Rawa Laddoo's are probably the easiest and sort of a healthy everyday sweet. For those like my self who crave a tiny bite of "Meetha" after your regular meals - this can be a great option.

The stuff you need:

Rawa [Also called Sooji or Semolina] - 1 Cup
Mawa ] Also known as Khoya or the home made condensed milk] - 1 Cup
Indian Ghee - 1/2 Cup
Sugar grounded absolutely fine - 1 Cup
Cashews - 10-12 - finely chopped
Cardamoms Powder - of about 5-6 of them

The Method:

Pour the Ghee in a thick pan let it heat. Then add the rawa to it. Continuously stir it. Let the gas be on Medium all the while. If you do not stir it regularly the rawa would burn. once the rawa is light brown.

Remove the rawa in a fresh dry plate. The pour the mawa in a the pan and let it cook for some time. once the mawa turns into a paste like and is golden brown remove it from the pan and add it to the rawa. The mawa too would need regular stirring and a medium gas.

Add the cashews & cardamom powder to this mixture. Also add the sugar now. Mix it all well.
Now the hard part - you'll need to make the round balls  - the laddoo's now while it's a little hot for it to set really well.
If you like you can garnish it on top with a cashew each.

yummilious,, ready to eat. Also - semolina is particularly very good for kids. Hence makes a good snack for the little one too :)

Rasgullas...

Now this is a dish that I strongly believe might have been invented in days without refrigerator, where people wouldn’t know what to do with the milk if it’s gone bad! What a tragic cause resulted in such a yummy dish!!

Anyways this is the simplest dessert you would ever get to make and will be so light on you – before you know you would have gulped them all!!

So now that I have given you the heads up – here is how you make it –

Ingredients:

Full fat milk – 1Ltr

1 Lemon’s Juice

2 cups sugar

Chilled water – 1 Cup

Regular water – 1 Ltr

Arrowroot – ½ tsp

1 thin cotton cloth

The Method:

Boil the milk. Let it cool a little bit then mix the lemon juice and let it turn sour. Mix it slowly that would help it turn sour much better. Spread the cloth on the strainer and pour the milk through. After all the water has been strained out pour the chilled water on the thick milk remaining in the cloth to wash it further. Keep mixing it as you pour it.

Tie the cloth into a tight knot and let it hang for 30 mins to an hour.

While the milk is straining in the cloth, we can work on the sugar syrup. Pour the sugar in a clean pan and add ½  a liter of water to it. Keep stirring it occasionally. Check it if it’s done by pouring  a drop in a bowl – then touch it with your finger – try sticking your thumb & finger if you see the syrup giving away one thread while you try doing this then it’s ready for stage 2.

Take the contents out of the cloth after an hour add arrowroot to it and kneed it like dough. Make nice soft dough of it.

Breaking equal size balls from it – you should get approximately 20 balls from this much milk. Make nice even balls and set them aside.

Once all the balls are done – add them to the sugar syrup. Let them boil with the sugar syrup. They will start floating on top of the pan in the syrup when they are done. This typically takes about 10-15 mins to happen.

You might need to keep checking on the syrup too. If you see it’s getting thicker you can keep adding little water to it. This is the key step here. If the syrup gets too thick it won’t seep into the milk balls as much as we would like it to. Gradually you would notice you will end up using the rest of the half liter of water in the syrup too.

Once you are able to break the rasgulla by spoon comfortably – without it feeling too spongy, then you should know this is all done.

Let the rasgulla’s stay in the sugar syrup and this entire thing cool down.

The next big step is to open your mouth big and wide and free of guilt of sugar - & gulp one of them right in…!!

You won’t be able to stop then J

Tomato Ketchup

So this all started when a neighbor gave me some fresh home grown tomatoes. The sight of those fresh tomatoes ripe and ready to be savored just brought back the childhood memories of my mom making the ketchup at home… the hard work… the aroma at home and how we use to finish it up much sooner than what it was intended to last!!

So here is what will make you a proud mommy – make the ketchup yourself!

This is recipe is for 2Kgs of tomatoes, please increase or decrease the ingredients as per the your tomato quantity.

Ingredients:

2 KG Tomatoes – the riper the better

1 Cup Sugar

½ tsp ginger powder

½ tsp black pepper

½ tsp salt

½ tsp vinegar

 The Method:

Chop the tomatoes in 4-5 pieces each & throw them in a thick bottom pan. Stir occasionally. You would need the gas to be on high for the first 10 mins. You can keep these covered while they cook. After 10 mins reduce the gas to medium and stir more often. If you have one of those mashing spoons – feel free to squish the tomatoes as much as you comfortably can.

The best part of this recipe is that it doesn’t need you to constantly attend to it.

After about 20 mins of cooking, remove the tomatoes from the gas stove. Let it cool down. Then throw them in any regular grinder that you have and grind to make a good puree.

Pour the puree through a strainer mixing well with a spoon. This would help you to get the pulp and the sauce separated. Once you have the sauce separated pour it in to a clean pan and let it boil. When it gets to a boil add sugar, ginger powder, black pepper & salt.

Let it boil some more, ideally till you reduce the sauce to 3/4^th of the quantity. Then remove it from the stove. When it has cooled down a little bit add the vinegar.

Let it cool entirely, preferably save it in a glass jar – would live longer.

Enjoy it! – with almost anything J