Recipe: Balushahi

A traditional dessert similar to a glazed doughnut in terms of ingredients, but differs in texture and taste.

Hebbars Kitchen

1. Add 6 cardamoms to the apparatus, peel it and grind it. keep aside.

2. Take 30 to 40 saffron strands, add a little water so that the saffron gives off color. keep aside.

3. Take 2.5 cups refined flour / maida. add 1 tsp baking powder to it. mix well.

4. Add 1/2 cup ghee to it. mix well again. add water in small portions to make dough. make sure you just bind it. keep it aside for 10 to 15 minutes to set.

5. To prepare sugar syrup, take 2.5 cups sugar in a vessel, add 1.25 cups water to it. turn on the flame. cook until the sugar dissolves in water.

6. Stir it at regular intervals and check it. the last drop of sugar syrup should form a single thread. when sugar syrup is ready, turn off the flame.

7. Add cardamom powder and the soaked saffron to it, stir once. place the sugar syrup over a jali stand. cover and keep it, so that it doesn’t cool down quickly.

8. After 20 minutes when the dough is set and ready, squash it slightly. keep dough layered. divide the dough into two portions and make a log from it. make small balls, meanwhile heat up a wok with ghee.

9. To shape the balushahi, lift a dough ball. give it a round shape. press it and make a hollow dot in the centre using your finger on one side. flip it over to the other side and repeat the same using a finger. place the shaped balushahi in a plate. make all the balushahi likewise.

10. Check if ghee is sufficiently hot. you need less hot oil to fry the balushahi. put the balushahi to fry on low flame. when balushahi floats over the ghee and it gets golden brown from below, flip them. slightly increase flame and fry well until golden brown from all sides.

11. When fried and ready, take it out. hold the balushahi over the ladle, so that the extra ghee drains back to the wok. keep it in a plate.

12. Drop the fried balushahi in sugar syrup. and let it be dipped in it for a while.

13. Meanwhile fry all the other prepared balushahi's the same way.

14. Take out the balushahi dipped in sugar syrup. keep it in a separate plate.

15. All the balushahi's are fried and ready.

16. To garnish, place balushahi in a plate. garnish with pistachio shavings.

Notes

1. It takes 20 to 21 minutes to fry balushahi at once.

2. Twenty one balushahi's are ready with this quantity of dough.

3. Balushahi can be stored in refrigerator and eaten upto 15 days.