Indulge in home-made Ghevar this Makar Sankranti!

Makar Sankranti is close at hand and those in the North of India, are familiar with the Rajasthani sweet Ghevar which is specially available in shops and is also made round this time of the year in homes. However not restricted only to this period, it is also made during Raksha Bandhan. But with the recipe available, people here and abroad, can enjoy making and consuming it whenever they want.

Understand the process, get the ingredients, keep ready and make. Then consume entirely or store some for later if you wish.                                                                                                                            

Ingredients Ghevar                                                                                                  

All purpose flour (Maida) – 300 gm (1 ½ cups)

 Ghee – 100 gm ( ½ cup)

Milk  – 100 gm ( ½ cup)

Ghee to fry the ghevar

Sweet syrup (chashni)                 

sugar – 300 gm ( 1 ½ cups)

water – 200 gm ( 1 cup) 

The making process                                                                                                 

• Put the maida on a fine sieve. Get the sieved portion into a bowl.
• Take the ghee and cold milk in another bowl. Whisk for both to mix well.
• Add the maida into this bowl & whisk again, taking care that no lumps remain. Ensure good consistency of the maida batter so that it drips smoothly like a string from the mixing spoon or small ladle.
• Now heat the ghee for frying in deep vessel or pan with good density (12” deep, 7-8” broad) the conventional frying pan should do. Once the ghee has heated up sufficiently, start pouring the maida mixture in small strings into the ghee in all directions. The areas where it is poured starts foaming.
• Let the foaming subside, pour the second lot of drippings again like before after 2 minutes. Again allow the foaming to subside, do the same thing a third time also.

Decide the size of your ghevar and pour the batter portions accordingly. 

• The portions that form go down in the ghee and come up again to stay at a certain point. Clear the central portion of the pan for more batter pouring if it gets crowded, by pushing the formed ones to the sides with a thin stick or fork and keep pouring more batter, like before.
• After having poured your quantity of batter into the ghee, lower the gas flame. Allow the poured batter now turned into solid ghevar to turn light to golden brown. If satisfied about light brown colour, take the ghevars with a stick and put them onto a wide plate.
• If there is a drain type vessel available, then the ghevar can be put in it for the excess ghee to be drained down. Otherwise tilt the plate slightly and carefully to allow the excess ghee to slowly drain out of the plate.
• Repeat the entire process till your entire quantity of batter is over and a whole lot of ghevars are ready on a wide plate or large tray.

Prepare the syrup

• Boil the water and the sugar mixed in it in a separate vessel or pan for 5 to 6 minutes. Check for consistency or stickiness by putting a drop onto a small plate and check between fingers. If the stickiness causes a sticky thread to appear on the fingers the consistency is right.
• Turn off the flame. let the solution cool. Dip the ghevars one by one and put them on a wide plate. Tilt at intervals for excess ghee to collect at rim of plate.
• Air cooled for about 1 hour on the plate, the ghevar is ready to eat.
• Because of the ghee content, ghevar can also be stored for future consumption in air tight tins.

Garnished with Rabri and dry fruits like pistachios and nuts, ghevar gets to be more tempting.  Some like to have prepared rabri spread over the ghevar before consuming. Rabri however shortens the life of the ghevar to only 2 or 3 days at the most.

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A combination of Ghevar and Pheni (or Feni), is generally enjoyed. Pheni is the extremely light, sugary or sometimes less sweet delicate thread like, extremely fragile, puffy and fluffy white coloured preparation that based on the difficulty and patience required, rarely venture to make at home, but instead prefer buying from reputed shops.

Enjoy this rich and wholesome sweet Ghevar with Rabari malai or Pheni to your heart’s content and have a nice Makar Sankranti. 

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