Mithai questionsમીઠાઈના સવાલ
Most mithai goes wrong in two places: the syrup stage, and the moment the ghee goes in. These ten questions sit in those two places, along with why gol and khand behave so differently over heat. Syrup is boiling sugar, so every test described here is one you do with the flame off.
How do I test one-string and two-string syrup without a thermometer?
One string means syrup boiled four to six minutes past the moment the sugar has fully dissolved, starting from roughly one cup sugar to half a cup of water; two string is a couple of minutes beyond that. Test it with the flame off and never with your fingers in the pan. Turn the gas right down, lift a few drops with a dry long-handled spoon onto a cold steel plate, count ten or fifteen seconds, then pull the cooled drops between thumb and finger. One unbroken thread that snaps quickly is ek taar; two threads that hold is be taar. Hot syrup is much hotter than boiling water, it sticks to skin and goes on burning, so keep a bowl of cool water beside you, keep your face out of the steam, keep children away from the stove, and never pour water into a hot pan of syrup. The common mistake is testing while the drops are still hot, reading the syrup as thin, and taking it well past the stage you wanted.
Why does my sheero go lumpy?
Sheero goes lumpy when the liquid goes in slowly or goes in cool. Keep the water or milk at a rolling boil in a separate pan and pour it into the roasted rava all at once, stirring hard with the other hand; rava that meets liquid a trickle at a time swells in clumps, and the dry centres never open. The other half of it is the roasting. Roast one cup of rava in half to three quarters of a cup of ghee on a low flame for eight to ten minutes, until it smells nutty and the grains loosen and move freely — undercooked rava stays pale, smells raw and clumps far more readily. Use three cups of liquid to one cup of rava for a soft sheero and two and a half for firmer, and add the sugar only after the rava has drunk the liquid, because sugar added early keeps the grains from softening. If lumps have already formed, press them out with the back of the ladle while the pan still has steam in it.
How much ghee goes into a sweet, and when should it go in?
Ghee goes in at the start, not at the end: half to three quarters of a cup for one cup of rava in sheero, and something near half the weight of the besan for mohanthal or magas. Its job in the pan is to coat every grain before any water reaches it, so the grains cook separately instead of gluing into a mass. Ghee poured over a finished sheero never gets inside; it sits on top and makes the dish greasy without making it rich. In besan sweets the ghee is also doing the roasting, and you add it in two or three lots as the besan drinks it, because all of it at once makes the besan swim and it browns unevenly. Hold back one spoon to stir in at the very end for shine, and that is the only ghee that belongs there. The common mistake is skimping during the roast and making up for it afterwards; the texture is decided during the roast and cannot be rescued later.
Gol or khand — which sweets take which, and how do they differ over heat?
Khand is used where the sweet has to set and gol where it does not. Khand is refined sugar, so it melts clear and crystallises predictably, which is why the one-string and two-string stages and sweets like mohanthal, magas, barfi and jalebi are all built on it. Gol carries moisture and molasses, is faintly acidic, foams as it boils and will not give you reliable thread stages at all, so it belongs in sukhdi, gol papdi, churma ladu, chikki and adadiya, where the setting comes from ghee and flour rather than sugar crystals. Two practical differences follow. Gol scorches sooner, so melt it on a low flame only until it is liquid and then take the pan off — gol boiled too long sets hard and turns bitter, which is exactly why sukhdi comes out like a brick. And gol in hot milk will split it, so kheer and basundi take sugar, or the gol goes in off the heat once the milk has cooled. Swap roughly weight for weight, allowing for gol's moisture.
My mohanthal and magas turn grainy, or stay soft. What went wrong?
Unpleasant graininess in mohanthal is crystallised sugar, and softness that never sets is syrup that did not reach the stage. The pleasant coarse grain of a good mohanthal comes from the dhabo — besan moistened with a little milk and ghee, rubbed and passed through a coarse sieve before roasting — and not from the sugar at all. Sugar turns grainy when the syrup is boiled past one string, or when the mixture is stirred while it is setting in the thali; pour it in, level it once and leave it alone. A mohanthal that stays soft usually had syrup below one string, or too much syrup for the besan. Working proportions for 500 grams of besan are roughly 600 grams sugar with 300 ml water and about 250 grams ghee, though these vary from house to house. Magas is the smoother cousin, made with finer besan and no dhabo, so it shows mistakes more plainly. Remember the syrup is boiling sugar: test it off the flame on a cold plate, never with a finger in the pan.
My ladu will not bind. What do I do?
A ladu that will not bind needs either more ghee or more warmth, and usually warmth. Bind while the mixture is comfortably warm to the palm, because the ghee in it is liquid at that temperature and acts as the glue, and a mixture that has gone cold will not hold whatever you do to it. The test is easy: squeeze a fistful, and if it keeps the shape of your fingers it will roll. If it crumbles, warm a tablespoon of ghee and work it in, then test again, and add a second spoon only if you must, because too much ghee gives ladu that go hard and weep oil. For churma ladu the grind matters as much as the ghee. Churma ground to a fine dust has nothing to grip, so keep it coarse like rava, and melt the gol gently in ghee before mixing it in. The common mistake is rolling straight out of the pan while the mixture is hot; the ghee runs out and the ladu set rock hard.
What is mava, and how many days does mava mithai keep?
Mava is milk boiled down until almost no water is left, and mithai made with it is the shortest-lived mithai in the house. Treat mava sweets — penda, mava barfi, kalakand, gulab jamun — as refrigerated food: two days in a covered box in the fridge, and on the counter in Gujarat weather, the day they are made and no longer. That is not caution for its own sake. Mava still holds moisture and has nothing in it to preserve it, which is exactly the condition in which dairy spoils, and it spoils faster once it has been handled and shaped by hand. Buy it from a shop that sells through its stock, get it home cold and use it the same day. A sour or fermented smell, a sticky or slimy surface, or any off taste means it goes in the bin, and do not keep tasting to decide. Besan and ghee sweets like mohanthal and magas are a different matter entirely, because there is very little free water in them.
My kheer splits, or it never thickens. Why?
Kheer thickens from two things, milk reducing and rice starch, and both need time: about a quarter cup of rice to one litre of milk, simmered thirty-five to forty-five minutes on a low flame with the lid off, stirring and scraping the base. Thin kheer is almost always kheer taken off too early, or made with too little rice. Add the sugar only once the rice is completely soft, because sugar slows the grains from breaking down and thickening the milk. Splitting is a separate fault with three usual causes. Gol, or anything acidic, added to hot milk will curdle it, so either use sugar or cool the kheer and stir the gol in off the heat. Milk already on the turn splits as soon as it boils. And a scorched base sends burnt solids right through the pan, so use a heavy-bottomed vessel and never leave it unstirred. A pinch of salt is fine; a salty spoon dipped in is not.
How do I make a sweet less sweet without ruining the set?
It depends entirely on whether the sugar is holding the sweet together. In mohanthal, magas, barfi, chikki and anything built on a syrup stage, sugar is the setting agent, and cutting it by more than about ten or fifteen percent gives you a sweet that will not hold a cut piece. In sheero, kheer, basundi, shrikhand and halwo nothing depends on the sugar at all, so you can take out a quarter or even a third and the dish is simply less sweet. Where you cannot cut it, reduce the sweetness you taste instead of the sugar you use. More ghee, more elaichi, a good pinch of salt and a layer of nuts all pull the palate away from pure sweetness, and cutting the pieces thinner and smaller does more than people expect. Gol is not a way to make a sweet less sweet; it is sugar with a stronger flavour. The common mistake is halving the sugar in mohanthal and then wondering why it stayed a paste.
Should mithai be kept in the fridge or outside?
Sort the mithai by how much water is in it, because that decides everything. Dry ghee and besan sweets — mohanthal, magas, besan ladu, sukhdi, churma ladu — keep at room temperature in an airtight steel box, eight to ten days in winter and four or five in warm weather, and they are better out of the fridge because cold makes them hard and they sweat when the box is opened. Mava and paneer sweets go in the fridge and get two days. Syrup sweets like gulab jamun keep two days in the fridge sitting in their syrup. Three rules cover the rest. Never close the box while the mithai is still warm, because the trapped steam condenses and that water is what spoils it; let it come fully to room temperature first. Use a dry spoon every time, never fingers and never a wet one. And keep the box away from masala and garlic smells, because ghee picks up the smell of whatever it sits near.