As I have told in my earlier post, how Holi time reminds me of home made delicacies. The main snack that is prepared for Holi in states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, New Delhi, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh is Gujiya. After I came to the US, for first few years I missed eating Gujiya on Holi. Although, Gujiya was not always my favorite thing to eat during Holi and I had always thought that this famous snack is little over rated. But as one only realize the importance of something after going afar, same happened to me. Therefore, one year I asked my mom to ship me some from India. The package that reached me had gujiyas, which were not whole pieces but were a perfect harmonious mixture of broken outer crispy cover and inside filling. I was happy with that too, as honestly I had no other option. And, then one day I decided, now that I am an independent young girl and have managed to live by my own pretty well ;), I should make gujiya by myself, and also I had no other ways of eating gujiya.
Finally, in the year 2012 around Holi, I bought khoya (reduced milk solids) from the Indian store and made gujiya. This was my first attempt at making gujiya and although they didn't turn out to be perfect and were little hard to eat, they were still manageable and delicious.
I used wrong proportions of oil and flour and that was the mistake. The same happened the following year, but 2014 brought a smile and better cooking sense and the gujiya I made turned out perfect. (Below the post I have shared the recipe).
This year in 2016, I wanted to do a notch more and hence decided to do something different along with Gujiya. Last year I made mathri (fried crispy snack). My husband and son loooooooove Kulfi (Indian milk based popsicles), therefore, I decided I will make kulfi. Early last year my husband and I followed Indian version of master chef and in one of the episodes participants were asked to make mango boondi. I was intrigued by that thing as it was also mentioned that boondi were not the traditional fried besan boondi (fried crispy little chick pea flour pearls used in yogurt based side dish or are sweetened to make sweets) while the boondi spherification was done using cold oil. From over a year I was looking for the recipe and was trying to find how mango boondi is made.
Finally, after googling with different search dimensions and names, I found out that mango boondi that was shown on that show is basically mango caviar (Recipe is towards the end). Making any kind of artificial caviar from fruit juice is a technique of molecular gastronomy. Please don't ask me anymore about it, as I am not a molecular gastronomy expert, I am actually just a poor molecular biologist. Anyhow, so I found the recipe and luckily I also happened to have a can of alphanso mango pulp.
I found agar agar powder at Asian store close by and was all set to make mango caviar to top the Kulfi. It was an awesome idea and recipe didn't look too difficult. There were few things I didn't realize, such as; the mango pulp can was big in size around of one kg, recipe had juice which is lighter in weight in comparison to pulp, I didn't pay attention that I had to cool the mix before dripping pearls in cold oil, I should have done my first experiment in small quantity, and that I should have had large amount of cold oil in order to make mango caviar from one kg of pulp.
And, I ended making up a mango mess in my kitchen. I tried working with hot mango pulp boiled with agar and it resulted in mango pulp spill everywhere, on the floor, on the counter, on the cooking top, spluttered on the microwave, and on my clothes. I emerged out of all that and started the process of dripping slightly colder mix in cold oil and was happy when little drops were settling in the cold oil. To my horror when I sieved the oil through a strainer, instead of finding beautiful pearls, I found one big mass of mango jello at the bottom. Although oil was cold, but pulp was still very hot and little heavier than regular juice.
Finally, I asked my husband for help, because I still had more than half of the mix left. He and I started dropping mango mix in oil using droppers, and as it always happen this way, all the mango pearls dropped by my husband in cold oil turned out to be perfect mango caviar. That was the only one cup worth mango caviar that turned out perfect and gave my husband an extra reason to gloat for the rest of the evening. We still had 1/3 mix left and it was already cold and was already in jello form. I still didn't accept defeat and cut that jello into small square bits to use as topping on kulfi.
This is my delicious and beautiful mango caviar :).
The good part in the whole mess was, that all the mango pulp spill was jelled and it was pretty easy to clean it afterwards. Altogether, it still was a good experience and a learning event. My friends and family played holi at the end of that week and enjoyed gujiya and kulfi. It was all together a good time and rest as always are only details ;).
Recipes:
Gujiya:
2 Cups of all purpose flour
Oil to mix in dough and frying
1 lb of khoya
2 tablespoon sooji
and sugar according to taste
Mix as much oil in flour as to make sure that when you hold flour in your fist, flour should not slip in between the fingers (this is important, as without this much oil gujiya doesn't turn out crispy), nor it should be in dough form. After that mix water to make a smooth dough.
On the other side, slowly roast khoya in a pan on slow flame and sooji in another pan on slow flame. Combine both things and add sugar to the mix.
make small balls out of dough and roll them in a little thin circle. Keep some khoya mix in the middle and fold the flat disc in half and seal the ends.
dry the raw gujiyas in between two paper towels.
This dough yielded into 20 gujiyas for me (in two I filled snack mix, as I was out of khoya mix :P).
Fry the dumplings in hot oil on medium flame and then enjoy.
Store gujiya at room temperature.
Mango caviar (based on my experience)
Keep oil for getting cold in the freezer for atleast 4 hours.
take mango pulp (any kind) and mix agar agar to it (quantity based on the package instructions). Boil the mix for 5 minutes and let mix get colder (not a lot but tolerable cold). Use a dropper to drop this mix in cold oil. Strain to remove oil and wash the mango pearls with water. Store this mango caviar in water in the fridge.
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