On this fine sweet tooth Saturday, QUIZINE IN QUARANTINE is extremely excited to show you how to put together some Balushai! This traditional sweet is enjoyed all across the sub continent but is particularly enjoyed in Northern India and Pakistan. Southern Indians have a similar dish called Badushah.
This dish was enjoyed by the Mughals and certainly feels like food for royalty with it’s extremely rich and sweet taste. You wouldn’t be wrong to classify this as the Eastern doughnut as the Balushai has similarities to a glazed doughnut. Balushai may look like a doughnut with its syrup glazing and ring shape, but it is very different in texture. Made with stiff dough consisting of ghee, these goodies are then fried and coated in syrup. They are are dense and flaky/crunchy than doughnuts in texture.
Dine like the Mughal royalty and have a go at this amazing Balushai recipe!
INGREDIENTS
440g plain flour
1 tsp. baking powder
110g ghee
1/2 tsp. saffron/food colouring
440g sugar
220ml water
1 tsp. lemon juice
4 crushed cardamom
Pistachios to decorate
1. Begin by mixing baking soda with flour in bowl.
2. Now add ghee and mix until you’ve reached a grainy texture.
3. Add water into the mix whilst mixing, soon you’ll have some dough in front of you.
4. Leave to rest for approx 30 mins.
5. Now tear bits of the dough off and make your traditional Balushai shape, a flat and circular shape with a hole in the middle, similar to a doughnut. Pierce the middle of the dough and gently mould into thick doughnut shape.
6. Leave your shaped dough to rest, now we get started on making the syrup! Begin by adding water to pan to a cooking pot.
7. Chuck in sugar, a touch of saffron, lemon juice and bring to boil. Keep mixing so the sugar doesn’t burn in the bottom of the pan. Boil until sugar has completely melted. This should now be a fairly thick syrup.
8. Allow syrup to cool before adding a final touch of crushed cardamom.
9. Now we move to frying the ring shaped dough. Fry in oil for approx 10 mins on low heat, making sure to flip in between.
10. Once the Balushai is a beautiful golden brown transfer straight from the hot oil into the syrup pan. Make sure the syrup is warm when doing this, allow the Balushai to completely soak up the syrup.
11. Now transfer the Balushai onto a bowl and sprinkle with some crushed pistachio. Drizzle the remainder of the syrup all over.
12. Allow to rest for approx 10 mins, and then tuck in! You can store in air tight container in room temperature for about a week and in the fridge for longer.