Gujia

This week  my second recipe under Traditional dishes in BM is Gujia. Gujia is deep fried all purpose flour pastry filled with Kova(condenced and thick milk, check my recipe for making kova here ) and dry fruits like dry coconut and cashew nuts and almonds. There are many variations in making this recipe, in Andhra pradesh we make this with a different filling. We use grated dry coconut with suji (semolina) and nuts and we do not dip them in sugar syrup and we call this as Kajjikayalu . Same like Andhra Pradesh in Karnataka  but stuffing is little different they use powdered fried gram( dhaliya) and jaggery instead of sugar here they call this as Karida kadubu or Karigadubu. And in Maharashtra the name is Karanji, here filling is almost same like Andhra Kajjikaya. In Maharashtra some people make stuffing with fresh grated coconut also.
                                                           Now coming to the recipe Gujia is a traditional dish in North India. Specially they make this sweet for Holi and diwali. Here stuffing is different and process also little different then South Indian recipe. So let's check how they make this delicious traditional sweet.
INGREDIENTS:----
All purpose flour (maida) --   2 cups
Ghee  ---   3 tab sp
salt a pinch
Oil for deep frying
For Filling :---
Kova/khoya/mawa (unsweetend) ---   2 and half cups grated and lightly fried.
Grated dry coconut  ---  4 tea sp
Cashewnuts --- 15 finely choped
Almonds  --- 15 finely choped (blanched and choped)
Cardamom powder   ----  1/2 tea sp
Powder sugar  ---  half cup (if you like more sweet you can increase the sugar to two cups, half cup sugar powder is more then enough because we are going to dip this gujia's in sugar syrup.)
For Sugar Syrup:--
Sugar -- 1 cup
Water  ---  1/4 cup
METHOD:---
1. Shift flour, salt and ghee in to mixing bowl and rub well to bring a bread crumb texture.
2. Add little cold water and knead in to a stiff dough, cover with a moist cloth and set aside.

                                                     
3. Take kova, choped cashewnuts, choped almonds, grated dry coconut, cardamom powder, powdered sugar and mix well to combine every thing, set a side.
4. Start heating oil in deep frying pan on a low flame.
5. Divide the dough in to small balls and press them in to small puris.
6. Place two spoons of filling in the center, aply little water on the edges with your finger and fold the puri in half like a half moon. Make all the puris like this and set a side.
7. Now make sugar syrup with 1 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water. This syrup should be like gulabjamoon syrup.
8. In the mean while deep fry stuffed gujia's in hot oil on a low heat till they turn in to nice golden color.
9. Remove the fried gujia's from oil and drop them in to sugar syrup. Sugar syrup should be hot when you drop fried gujia's in to the syrup. Then only they nicely coat with  the syrup leave them for a while means one second and remove from the sugar syrup, make sure that sugar syrup should coat all sides, place them in a serving plate.
Gujia's become dry with in one hour you can store them in a air tight container for one month.
I like this gujia's warm.
This is my second recipe with the theme of Traditional dishes for blogging marathon 23 rd edition at Vallis spice your life lets check blogging marathon page .