GHEVAR

Ghevar– A Rajasthani delicacy is traditionally associated with the Saawan month.

It is disc-shaped sweet made with all purpose flour and soaked in sugar syrup.

The beauty of this dish is in its Honeycomb/Filigreed like structure. There are many varieties of Ghevar, including plain, mawa and malai ghevar.

Ghevar traces it roots to vibrant n culturally rich Rajasthan.

If you happen to visit any sweet shop in Rajasthan,Delhi n many Northern  places in India I’m sure the halwai making Ghevar cant miss your eyes.

Generally people like watching him making cute discs of Ghevar with so much perfection.

If you live outside India getting this sweet is like a dream.

I was missing Ghevar so thought of giving it a try. And to my surprise they came out  well beyond my expectations.My family just couldn’t believe that I made these beauties at home n relished them.

(I’ve tried Nishamadhulika’s rec of Ghevar).

INGREDIENTS

For Ghevar:

2cups- All purpose flour(Maida)

1/4th cup Ghee, solidified

5-6 Ice cubes

4 cups Cold Water

1/4th cup Cold Milk

1tsp Lemon juice

1 kg ghee for deep frying

 

For the syrup:

1 and 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup water

1tsp Rose water

1tsp Cardamom powder

Few Saffron strands

1tsp lemon juice

Method

Prepare Sugar syrup of Single/1 thread consistency.

Boil the sugar and water together on medium heat. Once the sugar syrup come to the boil, simmer for about 5 minutes. So it takes total of about 12-15 minutes to get the sugar syrup done. Add the lemon juice to make the syrup clean and pure. Now add cardamom powder, rose water and saffron and trun off the heat. It is very important that you prepare single thread syrup for best result.

How to check for single thread syrup: With the help of your thumb and index finger, take sugar syrup(make sure it is not too hot)on tip of your index finger, and rub between thumb and point finger tip, and when you pull, you should see one thread.

Your Sugar syrup is ready.

Now we have to prepare the Maida batter for Ghevar.

Take ghee in a large wide bowl. Taking one ice cube at a time Rub/Whip the ghee vigorously with your hand.Take more ice cubes as required, till ghee becomes fluffy,creamy n white in color.

After that remove the ice cubes.

Whip it again till it becomes shiny n more creamy. There should be no grainy particles n the whipped ghee. It should be absolutely smooth n creamy.

 

Now we start adding milk, flour and water.

Start adding little by little n keep mixing.

Continue whipping while adding flour, milk n water till they reach to creamy n smooth texture.

The batter should be smooth n free of lumps.

In the final stage of whipping you can use a hand blender also.

Batter should be fairly thin (it should run off easily when poured from a spoon).

Now add lemon juice to the batter n mix well.

 

In the meanwhile keep ghee in a deep pan on your stove top. The pan you are using should be a heavy bottomed one.

You can use ring moulds also to make Ghevars. In this case you have to place your ring mould in the ghee pan.

When the ghee is smoky hot, we will add the batter to the ghee.Pour a ladleful of batter in centre the of the ghee, slowly in one continuous threadlike stream.( Dont worry about the spluttering of the batter in the ghee).

 

 

Allow the foam to settle.

With the help of a wooden spoon/ skewer make a hole in the centre n push the frying batter to the sides. We have to make a hole in the centre as we will be adding more batter in the centre.

Now take again a ladleful of batter n put in the ghee in one continuous threadlike stream. Again move/push the cooked batter to the sides n make a hole in centre.

Repeat the above process two more times.

Add a little batter to the sides to bind the sides well.

When foam settles down,loosen ghevar with a wooden skewer inserted in centre hole. Lift carefully, at a slant, and place on wire mesh to drain.

Keep the hot syrup in a wide flat bottomed container to fit in ghevar. Dip ghevar in it, and remove, keep aside on mesh to drain excess syrup.

                                OR

You can pour some syrup evenly all over, keeping ghevar in a mesh placed over a container.

For Topping/ Garnishing:

You can garnish the prepared ghevar with 2-3 tbsp Rabdi