Recipe For Holi – Gujiya With Groundnut Oil – Mesmara Recipes

Holi is coming up and we cannot keep calm! This is one of the most celebrated festivals in India and from youth to old, everyone eagerly awaits throughout the year for this festival of color. However, no celebration is complete without traditional food and delectable. Holi is no exception. Gujiya is one such dish that we all have grown up eating since our childhood days during Holi. No Holi celebration is complete without making this tasty dish. So, if your grand mom or mom is not around and you’re craving for those childhood memories of Gujiyas made by them, then here is for you a quick recipe for Holi. Eat it yourself or share it with your friends and family, live your childhood memories this Holi. And if you’re a health fanatic then there is a twist in this age-old Gujiya recipe, check it out.

Recipe for Holi – The secret behind a perfect Gujiya

Making a perfect gujiya like your mom and grandma is not so difficult job if you know the right proportions and knead the perfect dough. Along with all the ingredients that we have listed down below, add a dash of love to it and your perfect recipe for Holi 2019 will be ready in no time.

What is Gujiya?

In case you are from South India, you might not be aware of Gujiya. It is nothing but a traditional Holi sweet that is popular in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan. It’s more or less similar to a dumpling where the crisp outer layer is made out of maida and the inner fillings are made out of Khoya, coconut and loaded with dry fruits. If you are creative enough, you can bring in variations in the fillings by using a combination of mawa, dry fruits, baked gujiyas etc. However, our favorite is the timeless classic gujiyas. The recipe of it is given below —

Traditional Gujiya Recipe

Ingredients

Flour – 2 cups

Butter – 1 cup

Water to knead the dough

Sugar or jaggery – 2 cups

Khoya – 1 cup

Dry fruits finely chopped – ½ cup

Cardamom powder – 1 teaspoon

Mesmara cold–pressed groundnut oil

Ghee – 1 tablespoon

Method

1.    Take the flour in a vessel, add the ghee and mix well.

2.    Pour water slowly and keep kneading.

3.    The crispness of the outer layer depends on how the dough is kneaded. So, remember to knead the dough nicely.

4.    Keep it aside.

5.    Saute the khoya over heat for a minute or two.

6.    Then add sugar or jaggery, cardamom powder, and all the chopped dry fruits.

7.    Cook for a minute and turn of the heat. Let it cool for a while.

8.    Take a small portion of the dough and roll it out.

9.    Put the fillings and then seal the edges of the covering. You can either make shapes at the edges with hand or use a fancy cookie cutter to make the designs.

10.    Make all the gujiyas this way and keep aside.

11.    In a deep bottom pan, heat the groundnut oil. Alternatively, you can use ghee as well.

12.    Deep fry all the gujiyas in it until the color changes to golden brown.

13.    Make sugar syrup by boiling sugar water. Once you get the desired consistency keep it aside.

14.    Take out the fried gujiyas and dip it in the sugar syrup once and take it out.

15.    Serve in a plate and garnish with some chopped dry fruits on top.

Do try it out and let us know how it turned out. From the team of Mesmara we wish all our readers a colorful Happy Holi.

Mesmara’s cold-pressed oils are made from pure ingredients without application of any heat or other chemicals. Mesmara also stocks Cold-pressed Sesame Oil, Virgin Coconut Oil, and Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Try our other healthy recipes. Click here.

Image courtesy – Wikimedia Commons

Holi Festival – Tips to Protect Your Hair and Skin

Drawing curtains on winter and welcoming the summers is the Holi festival. Everyone awaits unabated for this special day, especially the young ones. This is the festival when the town not just paints itself red but in all the colours that you can get hold off.  

With the growing demand for colours, the industry has conveniently moved to chemically prepared recipes leading to harmful colours. While they are bright and come cheap, these colours cause skin and hair related complications. However, with increasing awareness, lot of organic holi colours have come up in the market. You can use such colours to reduce your chemical footprint and also keep your skin and hair safe.

You can control what you purchase and use, you cannot say the same about your neighbours. But will all this deter you from enjoying the festival? Come on, what harm will a little colour do? Exactly our point too. Let us prepare well and take the right steps to protect our skin and hair before and after the holi celebrations. Not to sound cliched, a stitch in time saves nine and the same goes here to make it a safe and skin friendly Holi.

Pre Holi Festival Preparation

Skin care

Try to take a bath in cold water if the weather permits before stepping out. This closes the pores on your body thus stopping a lot of the colour to seep in. You should then generously massage virgin coconut oil all over your body, this creates a hydrophobic layer preventing colour absorption.

A good sunscreen is recommended to protect skin from UV radiation. Eucalyptus oil combined with olive oil makes a natural moisturizing sunscreen.

It is very important that you make sure your skin is heavily moisturised and there are no cracks.  Do start off this process a few days ahead of the big festival. Applying shea butter or cocoa butter regularly keeps your skin hydrated.  

As you protect skin, do also show some love to your nails. Massage the ends and especially around the cuticle with few drops of tea tree oil.

Hair Care

On the day of Holi, wash your hair and rinse your scalp in cold water. The pores sizes will reduce and limit the chances of chemicals and colours getting absorbed into the scalp and hair roots. Do apply some mesmara Argan hair serum and a conditioner to make the hair less frizzy. The silicon layer that forms, as a result, minimizes the colour sticking to them.

Folks with long hair should be careful not to leave their hair loose. More surface area means more potential for damage. So neatly tie it up in a bun or alternatively use a bandana/a scarf to cover up before stepping out.

During Holi Festival Celebrations

While playing, stay in shade as much as possible. Sunlight makes the colours set in faster and coupled with the tan, it is difficult to remove. Resist the use of stubborn colours to minimize post-event issues.

Post Holi Festival Celebrations Cleanup

Even before you think about taking a wash, you need to dust off all the dry colour from your hair and body. Use a dry gentle cloth and a hairbrush to remove them.

Use oil-soaked cotton balls to ease out the stubborn colours. Had you applied oil before you stepped out, you will be surprised how easier it gets to remove. Use of oil has the additional benefit, it soothes your skin and nourishes during the cleaning process.

We suggest that you choose organic cleansers to wash off the colours. They are gentle to your skin and are packed with goodness. They will alleviate the already damaged skin.

Once you are done with superficial cleansing, use face packs. Mesmara’s range is very effective and can help in deep pore cleansing. They exfoliate and cleanse and in addition restore the hydration the skin needs. At the end, indulge your body in deep moisturising sessions for a few successive days.

To protect hair, a good shampoo is the only answer. Try to minimize damage by using an organic or mild shampoo. If you’ve got a lot of colour on your hair and scalp, they may not come off all at once. In such difficult situations, you should wash and let your hair dry. Apply oil and massage it well. Leave it for a few hours before you head back into the shower for another hair wash. This repetitive process will be beneficial to your hair and scalp. The dryness will be lesser from repeated washes and the oil will help in dissolving and releasing the colours from the pores.

In contrast to the cold-water bath before you stepped out, post-Holi, the bath needs to be in hot water. This will open-up the pores and make the process easier.

Hope the festival of colours paint the canvas of your life with joy, love, happiness, prosperity, good health and success. Mesmara wishes all its readers a colourful and happy Holi.