Mohan Thal - A Traditional Gujarati Sweet

Few days back when we were watching Sanjeev Kapoor's Kitchen khiladi, one lady made mohan thal. My huby said , make this one  if you can. In my life I never made this kind of authentic sweets, so I look it up all the recipes I found for this one, I wanted to stay as close as traditional one for first time, then next time I will use it what is easy and fast for me. I have one recipe book in Gujarati and that one as easy as it goes but still stay very traditional so here it comes.

Ingredients :

2 cups Chick pea flour / Besan
1 to 1/4 cup ghee (its up to you how much you want to use it)
3 tbsp. warm milk
1 cup fresh grated khoya (you can use store brought too)
2 cups sugar to make sugar syrup
few strands of kesar (saffron)
few Almond slices
nutmeg powder
2 tsp. cardamom powder


Method:

Warm milk and keep it aside.
Add melted ghee and milk in to chickpea flour and mix it. you can use food processor also. Texture should be now crumbly.

On other side make sugar syrup. Add sugar in large pot and add water till sugar is sink. Make one thread consistency syrup and leave it on very low flame till you use it.

Now sieve chick pea mixture thru a medium holed sieve. Use it everything.

Now heat the ghee in non stick pan along with besan mixture and keep stirring and cooking till it gets nice golden brown color. You have to do this on very medium to low flame. you can not rush it.

Otherwise you will have burn flavor mohanthal and all your efforts goes to drain.
now add Khoya, cardamom powder, almonds, nutmeg powder and mix again till it becomes smooth and khoya is all mix up.

Add sugar syrup and kesar in it and cook till it mixture become thick.
Pour the mixture in pre greased dish and spread it nicely.
Sprinkle leftover almonds pieces on top and grate some fresh nutmeg to gives nice flavor.
You can make thick pieces or thin, its up to you.

Let it cool for 5 minutes and then cut it and cool completely to remove from dish and store in air tight container.

Enjoy.

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Halloween Chocolate Bark

Kids need candies but when you make it at home, you can control the ingredients which goes in it and they are happy too that they are eating festive candies. That is the whole purpose of this bark. I saw this recipe in parade magazine and I saw it to kids, Since that day every day I got bombard with question that mom, when are you going to make this for us? I said I still have to buy candy corn, dark chocolate and then I will make it, So I got all the required ingredients and I made this. You can add nuts and make this nuts bark , add marshmallow in this with pretzel and candy corn too, but since we don't eat that I opt out. But still its good enough to make my kids happy. After looking at those spooky fingers you all made, I was warned by kids not to make those and I was not going to. So here it comes easy and kind a healthy chocolate bark.

Ingredients :

1 cup dark chocolate candy wafers
few pretzels, candy corns

Method:

Take a cookie sheet and greased it , put parchment paper on it.

Melt candy in microwaveable bowl for 2 minutes and stir in every 30 seconds.

When its melted thru, spread it on parchment paper in rectangle shape or what ever shape you prefer, it does not matter because you are going to break it anyway. Make sure it's not too thick or too thin.

Sprinkle pretzels and candy corns in it and press just a bit so it sticks.

Put it in fridge for 30 minutes or until it comes up.
Break it in to irregular pieces and enjoy.

 Made three leaves also from yellow chocolate.

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We Should Cocoa” ,  Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog and me, Hannah at Honey & Dough 

Microwave Khoya / Mawa

This year I wanted to make sweets but not using store brought khoya for number of reasons, First it's frozen solid, don't know how long its in the store's freezer and its not at all fresh, above all its damn expensive. Well when it comes to grocery,  for American grocery , I am a coupon queen, I buy product if its on sale and I have coupon, so I save big time. Who lives here know what I am trying to say. Even now my kids know that if its on sale and mom has coupon mom will toys or their stuff and if they are with me they asked me , mom do you have coupon and its on sale? so you got this. So why waste money on old frozen khoya when you can make it at home in 3 minutes and its fresh and you can use it the way you want it, you don't have to think twice that oh no, its too expensive so I have to use it wisely. I made Traditional way khoya also. So guys, make this khoya and make your festival more happier.

General Info about Khoya  is

Khoa or khoya or khawa or mawa is a dried whole milk or milk thickened made by heating milk in an open iron pan to condensation.
It is similar to ricotta cheese, but lower in moisture and made from whole milk instead of whey.
There are three types of khoya - batti, chickna, and daan-e-daar. Batti, meaning rock, has 50% moisture by weight and is grated like cheese. It can be aged for up to a year, during which it develops a unique aroma and a moldy outer surface. Chickna (slippery or squishy) khoya has 80% moisture. For daan-e-daar, the milk is coagulated with an acid during the simmering and has moderate moisture content. Different Khoa is used for different preparation. - Source rediff.com

 

Ingredients:

1 cup fat free milk powder (I used this one, but you can use full fat too)

1/4 cup ghee / purified butter
2-3 tbsp. milk

Method:

Mix milk powder, ghee and milk in microwave safe bowl.  If should be thick batter.

Cover it and microwave on high for 2 minutes.
Stir it and cover it again and microwave for another minute.
Allow to cool  khoya and is ready to be used in any sweet dish.

 As it cools, its going to harden so grate it or crumble it for your use. I made one traditional Guajarati sweet is coming next using this khoya.

 

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Turiya Patra nu Shak / Ridge Gourd and Colocassia Leaves curry - Guest Post

Today's dish is shared at Shruti's  space called Cooking with SJ.  She belongs to same city in India and now settled in Australia but now a days with social media we are not that far. We talked practically every day and she told me to do guest post and I said why not.


She has a lovely blog with amazing dishes, Just like me , she also like to use paniyaram pan to make healthy dishes, one of my favorite is Baked Onion Pakora. her Dudh Pak / Gujju kheer reminds me good times back home. so guys check her out her space for my recipe as well as hers too.

To do a guest post,  one gujju blogger  to another , I  thought why not make 100% gujju dish. So here is the dish and link

cut Turiya

Ready Patra

cooking turiya

 

 

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