Gearing up for the Holi festivities is an exciting phase in its own right, and the food preparation part of it especially so. Although we have a repertoire of traditional food items to feast on for this occasion, and I quite enjoy them all, I cannot help but suggest a tweak or two to the popular ones. This will not only up their NQ (Nutrition Quotient) but will also add an interesting twist to the traditional dish.
The ubiquitous Holi drink is thandai, which is refreshing and tasty. Thandai is prepared with a mix of nuts and seeds,which are storehouses of proteins, good fats, vitamins and minerals. The nut-seed powder along with some spices and rose petals is dissolved in milk. As its healthier variant, you can dissolve the nut, seed and spice mixture into milk and curd, and replace sugar with honey as a sweetener. With this tweak, you can avoid the intake of excess sugar and make it more palatable to those who don’t tolerate milk that well.
Speaking of the traditional Holi delicacy, gujiya, here’s what one could do to make this sweet more desirable from a nutritionist’s point of view. The outer shell,which is usually made with maida,can easily be replaced with a mix of whole wheat flour and a millet flour of your choice. Although this will make the pastry shell a wee bit coarser, it will actually enhance the texture and taste of the gujiya.
The filling inside the shell is typically prepared with khoa, which is thickened milk and sugar. Replacing the khoa filling with shredded fresh coconut, nuts and a small amount of brown sugar will do wonders. The goodness of coconut in a whole wheat and millet flour pastry shell does make a welcome substitute to the standard gujiya.One should also enjoy the malpua prepared on the occasion of Holi, before the summer season sets in and makes it impossible to eat such a rich food!
To make the malpua batter more nutritious, prepare it with a mixture of whole wheat, flaxseed powder, jaggery and water. Add grated apples or mashed banana to the batter and whip with a fork. This will make the batter fluffy and add the special fruity taste to the dish. You could also add a dash of orange or lemon rind to enhance the antioxidant value of the dish. The rest of the procedure for making malpua can be as usual.
Pakoras, another must-have item on the Holi menu, can be prepared with the nutrient-rich green and red amaranth leaves, which are in abundance in this season. Do not chop up the leaves into tiny bits; instead try and coat single leaves with the spicy besan batter and shallow fry in mustard oil. Place the pakoras on a flat dish and generously sprinkle sesame seeds over them. Serve with tamarind and date chutney to get your daily dose of iron too.