hare chane ki gujhia, chukandar wali gujhia and more colours in my food this holi...

Hare chane ki gujhia is not a new recipe invented by me, I have tasted it in Banaras around holi festivities many a times. Hara chana (tender green garbanzo beans) is a seasonal delight around this time of the year and many enterprising home cooks use it in many different ways. I have had burfis, halwas, gujhia and stuffed parathas made with hara chana apart from the nimona, ghugni and alu chane ki subzi. I have known some really creative home cooks and more importantly, I have remembered all that I have had as good food in the past. I remember how people would be scared to eat any green gujhia on the occasion of holi fearing it might be laced with bhang. Some of those really were. You never knew. You can disguise bhang in hare chane ki gujhia well and no one would get to know.

Incidentally, hara chana is also called 'hora' or 'horha' in the Hindi heartland and the name is linked to 'hori' which is the vernacular name of the festival holi. The whole mature shrubs of chickpeas are fired along with the 'holika dahan' on the eve of holi and the char grilled chickpeas are distributed as prasad. So 'hora' is the much loved produce related closely with 'hori', a gujhia made using this produce is not much of a surprise.

This time when I was feeling lazy about making gujhia and kept procrastinating till the last day, the thought of colourful gujhia made me get going with the ingredients. I made instant khoya from milk powder in microwave, mixed a bit of grated beetroots to the regular nuts, raisins and khoya mixture to make a red gujhia stuffing. And then I made use of the hara chana to make a green stuffing as well. It was fun to make people keep guessing about the stuffing as we had all gathered at my brother's place for holi. My nieces had a good time gobbling up more gujhias that had holi colours in them. Or so they thought.

For the red gujhia, 1/2 cup of grated beetroot was sauteed in a tsp of ghee and then added to 300 gm khoya and more chopped nuts and raisins, grated dry coconut etc to make the regular gujhia stuffing. Rest of the procedure was the same as these gujhia. The only change I did in the beetroot stuffing is, I changed the cardamom flavouring in usual gujhia to a combination of nutmeg, clove and cinnamon flavours. These spices complemented the beets flavours really well.

For the green gujhia I made a coarse paste of 250 gm of hara chana, sauteed it with 1 tbsp ghee till it becomes a little dry and darker green. Doing it on low flame in a thick base kadhai helps in getting the right consistency in about 10 minutes. Then I added 1 cup of fine grated dry coconut (kopra), 3/4 cup of sugar and mixed everything well. Cardamom powder and finely chopped pistachios were added for flavours. The remaining procedure of the pastry dough, rolling and stuffing the gujhia was the same as this recipe.

And I also baked some gujhia this time too, I actually made gujhia 3 times this season, but all of them got over really quickly. My dad loved the baked ones I made without any added sugar. The pastry dough was kneaded using fresh malai and the total fat content was minimal and yet a nice rich taste in the final baked gujhia. Even I liked those as I never enjoy having too much sugar, the natural sweetness of khoya is enough for my taste buds. Try doing that next time you make gujhias and see how you like them.

Baked Gujhia ...finally..

  Gujhia, Guzia or Karanji, you might like to call it a sweet puff pastry, this is something you cannot go wrong with. Err..you cannot go wrong with it when you bake it. Many of my friends have been bugging me for ages to post a baked Gujhia recipe as there is no fear of the Gujhias getting punctured while deep frying. Yes, many people just fear that the most, the stuffing and sealing the edges is a skill and many beginners have a problem with this step. So this baked Gijhia is not at all low calorie of tinted as healthy food, the baking part is just to make the process convenient. Deep frying can be scary with a sugary stuffing for a beginner cook.

 If not sealed properly the Gujhias just open up like a book in the hot oil and all the stuffing comes gushing out. Not a good sight, leads to a lot of frustration as the most laborious work goes down the drain. Even a small puncture in the seal can make the sugared stuffing ooze out and the molten sugar keeps browning in the hot oil and keep coating the other Gujhias being fried in the same batch. A frightening thought for all the dough challenged people. Yes, a dough sounds fun and easy to many and it just frightens so many others, be it bread or puff pastries or a crust of a pie.

I have posted a deep fried Gujhia long back, some noisy pictures would greet you here with a plateful of fried Gujhias. The stuffing is the same in this baked version too and even the pastry layer (the shell) is the same.

 And please do not be in an impression that the baked Gujhias are any lower on fat content. There is enough shortening (called moyan in hindi) in the pastry dough to make them crisp and there is more melted ghee brushed on them during baking too. So the deadly flour, fat and sugar combination is very much there to make you run an extra mile on the treadmill.

Having said that, you can always make the Gujhia using whole wheat flour and lesser ghee for shortening. That would result in a rustic pastry and a cracker like texture around the same khoya (evaporated milk) stuffing. While that might be a good idea if you are making it regularly for your kids, during festivals I feel like doing it the traditional way as it is a once in a year ritual.

Other sweet treats were made healthier using lesser sugar, a Besan and coconut burfi and a Sesame burfi is on the way. In quick succession I hope.

For ingredients and instructions to make this Gujhia, follow the list and procedure explained here... 

• After stuffing the Gujhias as suggested, arrange all of them on  a greased baking tray. 

• Preheat the oven first and bake them at 200 C for the first 5 minutes and then at 150 C for 20 minutes more. The pastry ( the shell) would change the color to a pale white  first and then it goes on to get pinkish brown. Take the baking tray out of the oven and brush all the Gujhias with melted ghee and proceed baking. You might like to brush then with ghee once again after a light pink color appears. Results in a fluffy and light baked pastry. 

• The baking time can vary according to the size of the Gujhis you make and the thickness of the pastry you roll for stuffing. So keep a watch on the color of the baking Gujhias as you will be taking them out anyways for brushing molten ghee on them. 

• Tap them with a knife to check if done,  a hollow crisp voice indicates it's done and a pinkish brown color is desirable. Though a lighter color doesn't make a difference in taste. You won't want the Gujhias to brown more as it would result in caramalising the inner stuffing too much , a lightly caramalised stuffing is normal, but deep caramalisation would result in a tough texture when it cools. The Gujhia stuffing is supposed to be light and delicate normally.

Take care not to brown the khoya too much while preparing the stuffing if you are planning to bake your Gujhias. The stuffing as I indicated , gets browned a bit more while baking. Just a few precautions and a good rapport with your oven can make you free from heating a Kadai full of ghee.

I baked four batches of Gujhia this Holi..

The procedure is not done yet. I made an instant stuffing this time too. There was some pastry dough still left after consuming all the stuffing and I just rustled up an instant thing to stuff about a dozen Chandrakalas.

Chandrakala is a cousin of Gujhia, just the shape is different as it is a full moon shape hence the name Chandra-kala (Chandra is moon in Sanskrit ; Kala is art). Gujhia is half moon :-) 


The instant Gujhia/Chandrakala stuffing ...

milk powder 1/2 cup
sugar 1 tbsp (or more to taste)
chopped nuts 3 tbsp
poppy seeds 1 tsp
roasted semolina 1 tsp
grated fresh coconut 3 tbsp
green cardamom or clove powder a pinch

Mix everything well and use as stuffing.

The moisture in the fresh coconut ensures the milk powder and other ingredients get nicely homgenised while baking , the end product was a nicely caramalised stuffing.

Baking instructions are the same as Gujhia.

Some people like a thin coating of sugar syrup over the Gujhia and Chandrakala both. I like mine plain as the sugar syrup makes it heavy and too sweet to enjoy the delicate taste of Gujhias.

If planning to coat them with sugar syrup, make a syrup with 1/2 cup of sugar and 3 tbsp of water, cooked till frothy and poured over all the Gujhias to coat them lightly.

Would you overcome your reservations about making a perfectly shaped and nicely browned, crisp Gujhia?
Or there is a fear of baking?
Come on.

Edited to add : 

A few of my readers and friends were skeptical about the texture of the pastry cover, so I thought of posting a picture showing just how delicate and crisp the pastry was. Crumbling with every bite.

And to solve the mystery of an instant stuffing working fine for the baked version of Gujhia. The mixture cooked well to condense and become just right inside the Chandrakala.

See how nice it looks when I took a bite. The color is lighter than the already roasted stuffing used for the Gujhias above, but the light caramalaisation worked great too.

 Instant solutions re not always compromises. They yield great results sometimes.

Enjoy.

holi ki gujhia

Wishing a colorful holi to everyone. The eve of holi today and 'banaras ka khana' definitely owes you all a recipe of gujhia. Making these gujhias always reminds me of my early days when we all used to take leave and prepare these stuffed flaky pastry collectively at home. Today when I am caught up in so many other things and like most of other people feel like dropping the idea of making them at home, I am glad I manage to make at least some. It really takes you back in the memory lane and you get transported into your past, which is always beautiful.

Despite all the hassles, I make sure the traditional recipes are made at home, this is my way of having a feel of the festival, celebrating it. Believe me I was so happy to do it all, and in the end when you get to taste the fruit of your labor, it is out of this world. I would always suggest to try and make the traditional foods during festivals, it makes you feel happy and contented without having to waste time and energy in synthetic colours, firecrackers etc. Even if you don't have people around to spend time with, the traditional foods bring them back in your memories.

These gujhias are exactly the way my mom used to make. A crispy crust and a crumbly mildly sweet stuffing. It is very addictive, you can't stop at one if you have a sweet tooth. These are calorie bombs though.....:D:D

My mom used to make us all sit and do the rolling, filling, sealing work in the day time, all the stuffed gujhias were kept covered by a moist cloth and in the evening. She used to fry all of them slowly over low heat and that was done after each gujhia was stuffed and covered neatly by moist cloth.

It was a full day's work of making them (in huge amounts of course). Now I don't spend so much time on gujhias, I keep frying them at very low flame and at the same time keep rolling and stuffing them on the kitchen platform itself. Earlier all of used used to sit on the floor to do all this because there was a large quantity being made always.

Frying on very low flame results in better taste and texture, and by the time one batch of gujhia is fried, the next batch is ready after all the artistry done over them. I do the sealing and making pattern by hands. Somehow I feel that when we use the mould to make gujhias they loose their charm, hand carved gujhias have a better look and feel.

Anyway here is the recipe. I make the khoya stuffing in the morning and do all the stuffing and frying in the evening.

ingredients

khoya or reduced milk 500 gm ( I use instant khoya made using milk powder)
sugar powdered 250 gm or more to taste
poppy seeds (dry roasted) 1/2 cup
dessicated coconut dry roasted 1/4 cup or more
suji or cream of wheat 1/4 cup (optional, I skip it always but it helps when the khoya is moist)
almonds chopped 1/2 cup
cashew chopped 1/2 cup
raisins chopped 1/2 cup

procedure to make the filling or stuffing

Roast the khoya in a pan till dry and deep pink in color.

Meanwhile roast the suji in microwave for 2 minutes, turning twice in between. Then tip in the suji into the khoya pan along with all the ingredients except sugar and cook, stirring continuously till a nice aroma comes out and the mixture is dry, crumbly and deep pink in color.

Take off the flame and mix well with sugar and rest till completely cool to proceed, this is how the finished filling looks like...

ingredients for the shell

maida or all purpose flour about 800 gm
ghee or clarified butter about 200 gm
water to knead the dough
sunflower or peanut oil or ghee to fry

procedure

Rub in the ghee into the flour till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. The flour and ghee ratio may vary because I do it by instinct and never measure them.

Now make a stiff dough using water and let the dough rest for 15 minutes before proceeding.

Take a marble sized portion of the dough and roll a thin roundel, place a spoonful of the filling into it, fold it like a book, and seal the edges by pinching and folding the edge, applying pressure (flour n water solution can be used to seal if doing it for the first time. It has to be sealed properly as if it opens while frying it will mess up everything.

Make sure that the filling is properly secured, repeat the process to make more gujhias.

tip : if you prick each guzia with a pin 2-3 times, it will not split during frying.

Now slip them into hot oil,10- 12 at a time, and fry at lowest possible flame, turning them while frying, may be once.

It takes around 20 minutes for a batch of 10 gujhias to cook, time may vary but you can understand when they become pink n crisp.

Let them cool and keep in airtight containers. The gujhias keep well for a fortnight in the spring time north India temperatures.

There are a few more versions of Gujhia stuffing in Banaras, that I will share sometime soon.

Make some Gujhia now and enjoy.