Gavvalu

Its Bhogi and that time of the year when we remove all the old thoughts from our minds and start life afresh with Sankranthi. While this is the spirit of the bhogi bonfires, the celebration itself makes it an equally colorful festival. Most of us living outside India will not have the facility to light up the bonfire but let us follow the spirit and celebrate life afresh.

Gavvalu, meaning shells when translated into English is the name of this Andhra sweet, one that every Andhrite will remember to have munched off without even realizing its over.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour (maida) 2 cups
Jaggery 1 cup
Refined cooking oil 1 cup

Method:

Mix the all-purpose flour into dough of a chapatti dough consistency.

There is a kitchen equipment called as ‘gavvalu maker’. Add the dough into the gavvalu maker and it will roll out the gavvalu or the dough in the shape of shells. Alternatively, press the dough along the thumb and remove the thumb carefully. This needs experience coupled with expertise. A simple way is to take small balls of the dough and shape them into hemi spheres pressing the thumb finger into the dough like a bowl or a crater. They obviously will not seem like shells, but of course, the spirit and taste are the same.

Deep fry the gavvalu in pre-heated oil until brown, remove and set aside to drain out excess oil.

Add 1 cup water to 1 cup jaggery (implying the jaggery and water are in the ratio of 1:1), simmer and keep stirring to make a syrup or paakam as it is called in Telugu. The syrup should be of string consistency (i.e when you press a drop of the syrup in between the thumb and pointed finger, it should make a string).

Add the fried gavvalu to the jaggery syrup ensuring they get coated with the syrup and remove.

Crispy and sweet gavvalu are ready. Get set for the pre-dawn bonfires, dancing and munching crispy gavvalu. A very happy bhogi to all our blog readers.