Mawa Gajak

Calories per 100g: 412 approx

Gajak is a sweet made from sesame or peanuts. The calcium-rich sesame gives the much needed warmth during the winter days. Gajak is also called as chikki in some parts of India.

Jaggery is used as sweetener which gives it a beautiful earthy and dense flavour. When you add mawa to the recipe it is called as Mawa Gajak. It is a melt-in-the-mouth sweet made with Khoya (milk solids) which give the sweet a rich creamy texture. It is a traditional sweet made in January to celebrate Sankranti – a Hindu festival popularly celebrated across India with different names like Lohri (North India) Pongal (South India) or Bihu (North East India)

It is also the start of the harvest season in India. This festival is synonymous with colourful kite-flying.

The winters call for warming foods and amongst the wonderful range of winter foods, til (sesame) is quite a favourite and festive too. There are so many versions of this famous wintersweet. This version of the sweet is softer and hence easier to bite as compared to the ones made with sugar.

The temperatures can really drop low in these parts of India and the people fondly make this as something to store and eat through the season. It really can be had anytime. It is fuss free and great option to carry while on travel. The most famous Gajak can be found in these Northern cities of India – Agra, Meerut, Jaipur, Morena in Madhya Pradesh etc.

On my recent visit to Jaipur, I saw that Gajak was sold all over the city. Both in the famous sweet shops as well as on the streets.  This til (sesame) and (gur) jaggery sweet is quite similar to the til laddoos or til chikkis that we famously find in Maharashtra & Karnataka – the only difference is that in Gajak the til is ground in this case.

I was particularly impressed with the mawa gajak and wanted to try making it in my own kitchen and so I did. I am happy the way it turned out and so sharing the recipe with my family of readers.

Mawa Gajak

Ingredients:

150 g Sesame Seeds (white til) 1 tsp ghee

100 g mawa / khoya

100 g grated organic jaggery

½ tsp Cardamom powder

For rolling the Gajak

Butter paper / Aluminium foil

4 – 5 cashews & pistachios finely chopped ½ tsp roasted sesame seeds

Method :

• Take sesame seeds in a pan or wok and roast on low flame until there is slight change in color and they get fragrant. Keep stirring constantly to ensure they do not burn.

• Transfer the roasted sesame seeds to a plate and let it cool.

• Once cooled coarse grind the sesame seeds on pulse mode in a mixer jar and keep aside

• In the meanwhile, use the same pan to add 1 tsp ghee. When the ghee is hot, crumble the khoya / mawa with hand and add to it.

• Continue stirring on low flame till the khoya melts completely and you see very slight change in color

• To this melted khoya add grated jaggery and keep stirring to mix well.

• Cook till the mawa and jaggery till it dissolves completely.