Goan Pao Talks: GHONSS (SUGAR COCADA)

GHONSS

My imagination is tempted to think this was probably a sweet dish cooked up by a poor Goan woman, too weary, tossed up the dearest two ingredients in her kitchen to delight a dozen kids she loved the qickest possible way... the outcome was "Ghonss". Konkani translation.. Birds Nest.

Now I know most people are put off by the sugar-in-excess quality of this sweet dish. Also, I know that most homecooks are intimidated by the stages that melting Sugar takes, they fumble, adding more sugar assuming that'll work.

Xanti.. I come with new hope. Please do stick to using the least bit of sugar.

GHONSS (SUGAR COCADA)

INGREDIENTS:

4 Tender Coconuts

8 tbs Sugar (yes!.. that's ALL the sugar)

1 cup water

2 Cardamoms

1 tsp Icing sugar for dusting

Lots of Patience !! 😉

Tip: Choose a 'Tender coconut' grown stage that lies inbetween a Coconut whose flesh you canNOT draw coconut milk out of AND is NOT creamy to eat by metal spoon.

METHOD:

Prepping is very important for this sweet dish. So arrange your 20 butter paper cuttings 4" diameter (cupcake liners in my case) in a tray placed closer to your cooking range. Dust a tiny bit of icing sugar onto them to prevent Ghonss from sticking to paper.

First, slit the cleaned coconut flesh thin and lengthy. SUN DRY the slit coconut for couple of hours before cooking. This lessens cooking time as they'll be thirsty to absorb sugary syrup easily and immaculately crystalize.

Coconut boiling in sugar syrup

In a shallow steel pan. Put the sugar, water and whole cardamom(lightly banged to release flavor but not it's seeds). Keep pan on fire at medium heat. Swirl the pan to get the sugar to dissolve evenly untill it gets syrupy. Reduce heat to low. I'd not use a spoon to stir the syrup. As a spoon can miss sugar hot-spots causing areas to caramelise. And we don't want caramel. We want sugar to remain sugary white all the way through the final product.

Once you've achieved a lightly sticky sugar syrup add the Sun dried coconut cuttings into it and evenly cook them on low heat. Moving them around the pan with metal tongs ensuring no corner is caramelising under your watch. Lift the pan off fire if the mixture bubbles too quickly. It means you'll probably need a mesh atop fire to further reduce excess heat reach your pan. Or simply, occasionally lift the pan off heat when necessary.

Ready to plate

You'll notice the sugar is now getting elastic/stringy. Which means you're almost there. Keep moving the coconut mixture in your pan until the liquid is almost gone and your contents are ready for the next sugar stage. Crystalizing. You'll need that little extra liquid to now quickly pinch out sticky serving portions onto your prepared butter papers. Leave to cool.

Tip: If your coconut cuttings crystalize and separate just raise your pan off fire and spray a little water at a time to mix in while hot and get the sticky portion you'll need to make a 'birds nest' kinda serving.