Rajasthani Mini Ghevar With Rabdi - SNC 4

Ghevar a typical Rajasthani sweet, prepared in different sizes and in varieties of plain, mava, paneer or many more. It is sweetened with sugar syrup. This month  South Vs North Challenge (SNC), Manjula of  Desifiesta  of the North Indian team challenged the South Indian Team to make Mini ghevar  with rabdi, whilst the North Indian team are busy making Vadakari challenged by South Indian Team Ramya of lemonkurry

To make a delicious ghevar, the ingredients needed are flour,  butter, sugar, almonds, pistachios, saffron, cardamom powder. For making the batter, flour is mixed with water and clarified butter. The batter is put in a cylinder with heated clarified butter. The process is repeated and a round cake is made which is called ghevar. Sweet sugar syrup is made and ghevar is dipped in it. Soaked saffron is put on it and it is garnished with chopped almonds and pistachios.

Also, for the preparation of ghevar, a special skittle is required. It should be flat surfaced with 8-9 inches of breadth and 12 inches of height. It is tough to prepare this dish in an ordinary skittle and this one is the only recommended.

I felt this was such a tricky  recipe and the key ingredient to make this is just the  patience J. When I started to make the ghevar, my first ghevar went for a flop as I burnt it completely L then I tried the 2^nd one came out  a bit better and was not happy.  The third one was good, once you get  the correct temperature for oil and  batter pouring method correct and  they started coming out well.  Sugar syrup and rabdi was not a big task to make.

I am not at all a sweet lover, I never fancy eating them too. Give me any amount of spicy food I  will enjoy it till the last bit of it.  I am one among the person who has never had a ghevar earlier,  so my anxiety was  much to try this sweet.

When I ate this first mouth,  OMG the ghevar topped with sweet and rabdi together was heavenly. Worth all the hardship that I went through in making and we all at home enjoyed it so much.

Thanks to SNC  for coming up with this challenge, if not for this  I would not have made this sweet  nor would have tasted this and would have missed out on something. I have learnt one more dish and thanks to Manjula and Divya for this wonderful event.

I am from the South Indian Team.

 Ingredients:

Maida - 1  ½  cup
Ghee/ clarified- 2 Tbsp
Milk -  ¼  cup room temperature
Water – ¾  cup if required you can add more to make a thin batter
Cardamom a pinch  

For frying :

Ghee or refined oil

For syrup:

Sugar :  1½  cup
Water:  1 cup
Saffron strands few

Ingredients for Kesar Rabdi

Whole milk - 3 cups
Sweetened condensed milk - 1 can
Cardamom powder -  ½  tsp
Pistachios - 2 tsp, crushed
Saffron strands -  ½  tsp

For garnishing

Chopped pistachios
Saffron strands few

Method of preparing Ghevar :

For batter

Take milk and ghee and mix well  for 3 minutes.

Add sifted flour and mix well till there are no lumps. Add water little by little and mix it well into a smooth consistency. If you take in a spoon and try to drop on a plate, it should be thin.

Note : Use warm water to make batter so that it is easy to form a smooth batter without any lumps. If its cold weather then heat the water and use.

Frying Ghevar:

Take a round deep and flat bottomed vessel and fill more than half of it with ghee/oil. Heat it on high flame till the ghee gets really hot. Check the correct temperature by dropping a small portion of the batter and see if it immediately comes up, and doesn't stick to the bottom.

Once the ghee/oil is optimally hot (don't over heat the ghee otherwise your ghevar will start burning), take the batter ( I used a loti and ladle as shown or you can use a glass or a spoon with a sharp edge) and pour it in the middle of the vessel in a thin stream from 1 foot height. You could actually increase or stretch the height as much as you can, greater the height, better the texture.

As soon as the batter touches the hot ghee, bubbles start to appear. Be sure that the ghee bubbles do not start jumping out of the vessel. If you see that the bubbles are getting high enough, stop pouring for a while and continue later.

After the first spoon or after pouring quarter part of the batter, wait for a few seconds till the bubbles settle, and then pour the second spoonful.  I poured only 2 spoon full to make mini ghevar.

If the ghee or oil is not hot enough, the batter will start sticking to the bottom, so keep the flame on medium to high depending on the temperature required.

When you pour in the batter, you'll see that the batter starts scattering and collects near the sides in a circular fashion. As you keep increasing the batter, the disc starts taking its correct shape. In the meanwhile, if the batter sticks in the middle after pouring, use a skewer to detach that.

Let this disc go golden brown on medium flame. The sides will be slightly more golden. Once it is properly fried, take it out very carefully by inserting that thin skewer in the middle hole and lifting the whole ghevar with it.

Keep the ghevar slightly tilted on a plate to remove excess ghee.

Sugar syrup Preparation

For preparing syrup, take 1 and a half cups sugar and 1 cup water in a pan. Bring them to boil with occasional stirring. After the boil, heat it on low flame for 5-6 minutes till you get a one-string consistency.

Now spoon the hot syrup on top of the ghevar. Do not keep the ghevar in the syrup for long, as it will make them very soggy and wet.

Again keep them tilted in a plate to remove excess syrup. Let them dry in open air for about 1 hour or more.

Now you can store them in closed containers and refrigerate for further use. If you wish, you could garnish the ghevars with sliced almonds and pistachios.

Method for preparing Kesar Rabdi:

You can prepare Ghevar ahead..

Apply some ghee or butter on a pan and grease it well with this ghee/butter. This avoids burning of the milk.

Now heat the milk on low heat while stirring frequently.

Get the milk reduced to half of its original quantity. Now add the cardamom powder, saffron strands and 1 tsp of crushed pistachios, mix them well.

Add the condensed milk to this mixture and bring it to a boil. Don’t forget to stir constantly and scraping the sides.

After the milk is of thick consistency then off the stove.

Your delicious rabri or malai is ready, let it cool naturally then top the rabri or malai on top of crispy ghevar.

Top the ghevar with rabdi only when you are ready to serve

Latha

Sending this to:

http://desifiesta.blogspot.in/2012/12/rajasthani-mini-ghevar-topped-with.html

http://youtoocancookindianfood.blogspot.in/2012/09/south-vs-north-challenge-learn-excel.html