We all know that Holi is just around the corner and the festival of colours is just incomplete without some delicious food. From gujiya to thandai, here are some Holi special recipes with interesting twist to make your long weekend and the festival even more exciting.

-Ricotta Dahi Bhalla
(By Manu Chandra, Chef Partner, Monkey Bar)
Ingredients
For the bhalla
120g – Urad Dal
60ml – Water
10g – Salt
500ml – Refined Oil for frying
For the stuffing
70g – Ricotta cheese
20g – Walnut (chopped)
For the topping
25g – Mint chutney
30g – Tamarind and Date chutney
60g – Sweetened curd
20g – Pomegranate seeds (for garnishing)
20g – Potato salli (or bhujiya for garnishing)

Method
-Wash and soak the urad dal in water for 30-40 minutes.
- Drain out the water and then grind the dal in a mixer to make a smooth batter adding the measured quantity of water slowly to form a uniform mix.
- Transfer the batter into a large bowl and beat the batter in a circular direction with your hand for 5 minutes to incorporate air into the batter making it fluffy.
-Now add salt to taste, and mix lightly. Do not rest long after adding salt, as it leaves water and makes batter watery.
- Now dip your hand in water, and start make small sized vadas. Make a small pocket and add stuffing of ricotta and walnut mixture.
- Heat the oil and fry the vadas keeping the flame on medium heat and stir the vadas occasionally. Fry the vadas till they turn golden brown.
- To remove the excess oil off put the vadas on a kitchen towel.
- Immediately after, put the vadas into a bowl of lukewarm salted water and allow the vadas to be immersed completely.
- Allow them to absorb the water for 5-10 minutes and let them swell.
- Now take the vadas out of bowl the and squeeze out the extra water by squeezing it between your palms.
- Place three or four vadas on the serving plate, put three to four tablespoons of thick whisked curd over the vadas.
- Add some some green chutney and tamarind-date chutney over the curd.
-Garnish with few coriander leaves, pomegranate seeds and potato salli and serve.

-Palak-Chaat
(By Rakshit Sharma, Executive Chef at Hotel The Royal Plaza, New Delhi)

Ingredients
150g – Gram flour
200g – Baby spinach
60g – Rice flour
50g – Semolina (sooji)
15g – Carom seeds (ajwain)
10g – Salt
10g – Sweet Soda
10g – Red chilli powder
3g – Turmeric powder
250g – Yogurt
10g – Boiled chickpeas
3 tbsp – Mint chutney
3 tbsp – Saunth chutney
300ml – Refined oil to fry

Method
-First to make palak pakoras, take spinach leaves, remove the hard stalks, and rinse them well carefully. Pat it dry with the help of a kitchen towel or paper napkin and leave aside.
- For the batter, take besan (gram flour), rice flour, semolina, salt, red chilli, turmeric, sweet soda, carom seeds and salt.
- Add some water and make a smooth medium-thick batter and let it rest for 10 mins.
- Now take a pan for deep frying on medium heat. Once the oil gets hot, take one leaf and dip into the batter, remember that the leaf should be coated properly from all sides.
- Fry the coated leaves until it changes the colour and become crispy. Keep it on a paper towel to remove excess oil.
- Now to make the chaat, arrange the palak pakora on the plate and drizzle some green mint chutney on top.
- Add the whisked yogurt, saunth chutney and chickpeas.
-Sprinkle some chaat masala on top and serve hot before the palak pakoras get soggy.

Mawa Apple Gujiya
(By Maharaj Jodharam Choudhary, Corporate Chef, Khandani Rajdhani)

Ingredients
1 cup – All-purpose flour (maida)
2 tbsp – Ghee
1 pinch – Salt
3/4 cup – Mava (grated)
1/2 cup – Kopra (Dried coconut, grated)
5 tbsp – Powdered sugar
2 tbsp – Cashew nuts (chopped)
2 tbsp – Almonds (chopped)
1 – Apple (grated)
1/4 tsp – Cinnamon powder
1/8 tsp – Cardamom powder
500ml – Refined oil to deep fry

Method
- Combine the all-purpose flour, salt and ghee in a bowl and mix well with your hands.
- Now add enough cold water to knead it into a soft dough. Rest the dough for half an hour.
- For the stuffing, heat a pan and add grated mava to it. Stir it continuously without burning. Cook till it turns golden brown. Switch off the flame. Let it cool and set again.
- Add kopra, powdered sugar, dry fruits, grated apple, cardamom powder and cinnamon powder to mava and mix well.
- Now make small balls out of dough and roll into small poories (round shape).
- Place the stuffing on one half of the rolled dough. Stick the sides and make a half moon by sticking the edges.
- Make all gujiyas and fry them in hot oil at medium low heat till golden in colour.
- Remove onto an absorbent paper and let them cool.
-Soak it in sugar syrup or serve dry with some chopped pistachios (optional)

Thandai Rasmalai
(By Swasti Aggarwal, Food Strategist, Foodhall)

Ingredients
For the thandai
1.5l – Full fat milk/ whole milk
50g – Almond (chopped)
20g – Cashew nut (chopped)
12g – Pistachio (chopped)
1 and 1/2 tbsp – Poppy seeds (khuskhus)
1 and 1/2 tbsp – Watermelon seeds (magaj)
1 and 1/2 tbsp – Fennel seeds (saunf)
6g – Green cardamom
1 tbsp – Black peppercorn
1 pinch – Saffron
2 to 3 tbsp – Rose water
300g – Sugar
For the rasgulla
1l – Full cream buffalo milk
3 to 4 tbsp – White vinegar
1 tbsp – Refined flour (maida)
2 cups – Sugar
7-8 cups – Water (for sugar syrup and vinegar solution)

Method
- Begin the process my making rasgullas. Bring the milk to boil in a large vessel and boil for 4-5 mins.
- Dilute the vinegar with 2-3 cups of water and slowly add to the simmering milk. Add more water-vinegar mix to the milk if required to curdle completely. Once the entire milk solid (Chenna) is separated from the light yellowish green water, add a few ice cubes and 2-3 cup water to prevent the chenna from cooking further.
-Strain all the chenna and wash it under running water to remove traces of vinegar. Gather it in a piece of cheesecloth and hang for 2-3 hours to remove excess water.
- Transfer it to a flat container and knead with soft hand for 10 minutes to get a uniform mixture. Add the refined flour and knead for another 5-6 minutes to get smooth and soft dough.
- Equally divide the dough into 15-20 small balls and shape each into a smooth round flat patty with no visible cracks on the surface. (If interested, you can stuff each balls with chopped dry fruits.)
-Add the 2 cups sugar along with 5 cups water and bring to boil. Boil for 5 mins before adding the chenna balls. Boil and cook till the balls are half immersed in the syrup. Once the rasgullas are cooked, they will submerge in the sugar syrup.
- To make the thandai, boil the milk in medium low flame and then add saffron. Stir occasionally and let it release the colour. Allow the milk to cool down.
-Now in a mixer ground all the dry fruits, poppy seeds, peppercorns, fennel seeds. Ground the spices separately and keep it.
- Now mix the dry fruit paste and spice into the cooled milk and mix thoroughly. Add sugar and mix again so that no lump is formed.
- Add the rose water into the shake and keep it in the fridge to chill.

- To assemble, gently squeeze the rasgullas to remove excess sugar water. Then drop them into the chilled Thandai milk base. Refrigerate and serve chilled, garnished with almond and pistachio.