Chhat Puja Special: How to make Thekuya

It would not be wrong to say that Chhat Puja (also read: All you need to know about the festival) is incomplete without thekuya. A traditional Bihari sweet made with flour, sugar / molasses and ghee is offered as Thekuya Prasad.

On this special day, we have come up with a special recipe for you. Take off your chef’s hat and apron and try it on at home.

Material
250 grams of wheat flour
2 tablespoons chopped dried coconut
50 grams of sugar
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
3-4 whole green cardamoms
8 cups of water
Ghee for frying (set aside 1 tablespoon for flour mixture)
Dried fruit (optional)

Method
* In a pan mix wheat flour, dried coconut, fennel seeds, dried fruits, cardamom powder and 1 tablespoon ghee.

* Now make sugar syrup by boiling water and sugar. Boil until the sugar dissolves.

* Add this syrup to the mixture and whisk well. Make sure that the flour does not become water. The mixture should be a little wet, enough to make balls out of it.

* Grease the palm of your hand with ghee and take one tablespoon of the mixture. Make a ball and flatten it with the shape of a small disc. Make such discs from the whole mixture and keep them separate.

* Now, heat the ghee in a pan and fry the discs one by one until they turn from golden brown to dark brown.

Note: While the thekuas is fresh for up to two weeks, it also tastes great when heated. You can use molds to give Thequas a better shape and design. If you want to avoid sugar syrup, use dried sugar. Water can be added separately to prepare the mixture. Traditionally, molasses is used as a sweetening agent. You can replace sugar with molasses. Also, the amount of sugar or molasses is adjustable according to your taste.