Mamta's Kitchen Recipe

Gunjia, Sweet Indian Patties

Gunjia-Meethi or Sweet Samosa

Reeta Kumar

Bottom Picture: Gunjias with sugar coating and edible Silver leaf decoration.

This is a sweet from Northern India, made specially on Holi day, the festival of colour. Do not be put off by the long list of ingredients. Once you have made the dough and the filling, the pasties are not very difficult to make. You can adjust the stuffing ingredients to your own taste. Gunjias are shaped like Cornish pasties. Makes approximately 30.

Ingredients

•	For pastry:
•	500 kg. plain flour or maida
•	A pinch of salt
•	75 gm. or 100 ml. oil
•	For filling:
•	250 gm. Khoya or Mawa 1 / Khoya or Mawa 2, solid condensed milk. It can be bought ready-made, from the Indian sweet shops or grocers. You can use equivalent amount of
•	350 gm. sugar, adjust to taste
•	50 gm. desiccated coconut
•	25 gm. raisins
•	25 gm. cashew nuts, chopped
•	25 gm pistachios, blanched, peeled and chopped
•	25 gm. almonds, blanched, peeled and chopped
•	25 gm. chironji nuts (chiroli in Gujrati), chopped. Buy from Indian grocer.
•	A handful of peeled melon seeds or pine kernels, available from Indian grocer.
•	1 tbs. semolina, dry roasted (microwave on full for 2-3 minutes)
•	1/2 tsp. green cardamom powder or 1/2 tsp. nutmeg powder
•	Oil to deep fry
•	Gunjia mould, if possible
•	For syrup:
•	2 cups sugar
•	1 cup water

Instructions

1.	Making the filling:
2.	Measure all ingredients for filling & keep in a bowl. Chop raisins roughly. This avoids them bursting during frying.
3.	Mash or grate khoa or mawa. If shop bought, fry, without adding oil/ghee, in a wok or kadhai, until it turns pink in colour. Remember to keep stirring all the time. Allow fried khoa to cool.
4.	Add all other filling ingredients from step one to it and mix well. If using milk powder, do not fry it, simply add it to all other filling ingredients along with one or two tsp. of fresh milk, to 'bind' the ingredients together.
5.	Making dough:
6.	Rub oil & salt into the flour. Add water and make a medium firm dough, by kneading it thoroughly. You can use your electric food processor for making dough.
7.	Keep aside, covered, for 1/2 hour or so, preferably in a fridge.
8.	Making Gunjias or Pasties:
9.	Make ‘glue’ by dissolving 2 teaspoons of flour in 1 tablespoon of cold water. Keep aside.
10.	Divide dough into1 inch diameter balls.
11.	Roll each ball out into a 9-10 cm., 2-3 mm. thin circle.
12.	Place 1 tbs. of the filling mix in the centre.
13.	Moisten the edge of half the circle with flour-water mix or glue & fold the pastry over the filling, to make a half circle. Seal the edges by pressing gently. Starting at the right side whilst supporting the gunjia on the left hand, pinch the beginning of the edge, using first finger and thumb, turn over the pinched part, to form a crimp. Repeat this process all along the edge. Gunjia looks like a small Cornish pasty. Keep covered with a moist cloth, until you have a batch of 5-6. Next batch can be prepared while previous one is frying.*See Notes.
14.	Frying Gunjias:
15.	Heat the oil to medium hot. When ready, a test piece of the pastry dropped into the oil should sizzle and rise to the top slowly. It is important to fry the gunjias slowly, otherwise they get soggy. If you fry them in oil that is not hot enough, they will absorbs too much oil. So, getting the temperature right is important.
16.	Fry a 5-6 gunjias at a time, until golden brown in colour, but not dark brown.
17.	Sugar coating the Gunjias:
18.	Make sugar syrup of 2 wire consistency by boiling the sugar and water. Right consistency is reached when a drop of the syrup is stretched between a forefinger and thumb results in 2 wires stretching out.
19.	Keep it warm on minimum heat.
20.	Immediately after frying, lift the gunjias out of the oil and put them in the syrup. Turn over quickly, to coat all sides, take out and cool on a wire rack.
21.	Cool and store in an airtight box.
22.	Remember that gunjias do not have to be covered in sugar syrup, specially if you want to keep the sugar content low. Serve them straight after step 16.

Notes

•	*Instead of making gunjia shapes, you can make samosas shapes as follows:
•	Roll one ball on a greased surface into a 7-8 inch circle. Cut it into half.
•	Take one half of the circle at a time in your hand. Dip your index finger in the water flour mix and apply it to one half of the straight edge of the semi circle. Overlap the other half of the straight edge, making a cone. Press and seal.
•	Stuff with 1 tablespoon of the stuffing mix, press open edges gently to give a good seal.
•	Make all samosas like this. Keep them covered with a moist cloth. If pastry is allowed to dry, it is more likely to burst during frying.
•	Fry and coat with syrup as above.
•	Before serving, you can decorate them with sliver 'varak', thin film of edible silver.

Buy ingredients from a recommended supplier, Spices of India. For more information, see here.

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