Sheera is the most common sweet made in Konkani households and ours is no less. My grandmother always made it to satisfy our sweet tooth and my mother’s ghee laden sheera is still in my taste buds. I used to tease her “Amma, have you made sheera in ghee or ghee in sheera?”. She used to add loads of ghee in it as much as she showered her love in the sheera.

Both of them used to make sheera with sugar and I did not mind all that when I was a kid or teenager. But after marriage, when I was struggling with weight and infertility issues, I started substituting sugar with the healthier jaggery in most desserts and sheera became one of them too. We loved jaggery sheera so much that it became our favourite sweet, much more than sugar based sheera.

From then till now, it’s not changed and we have got two more miniature sweet lovers like us who love jaggery sheera very much too. I make it when they feel hungry even after dinner. It fills them up and to see them enjoy every bite of it is very satisfying to me as a mother who at one time had lost all hopes of motherhood.

Thus is my story with this favourite sweet of mine.. Emotional yet filled with beautiful memories..

Hope you all try it and your family loves it too. Happy and healthy cooking!

RECIPE:

Ingredients:

1 Cup wheat Semolina/ Sooji/ Rava

3/4 Cup Jaggery

2 and 1/2 Cups water

3 Tbsp Ghee

2 Tbsp broken Cashews

1 Tbsp Raisins

Step by step recipe:

1. Keep 3/4 Cup Jaggery to melt in 2 and 1/2 Cups water.

2. Heat ghee in a pan (I use iron kadhai for this) and fry cashews and raisins till cashews brown slightly.

3. Add semolina and roast on medium flame till it turns aromatic and changes colour. Takes about 3 to 5 mins.

4. Now see that jaggery is completely melted in the water and the water is really hot.

5. Add this boiling jaggery water through a sieve (to remove impurities if any) to the roasted semolina.

6. Mix well continuously on medium flame removing lumps till the mixture cooks well.

7. Serve warm.

Notes:

* You can also add cardamom powder if you love the flavour. I add sometimes too.

* Be sure to keep stirring continuously after you add jaggery water to the semolina. Else the mixture forms lumps.

* We are a sweet tooth family. So 3/4 Cup Jaggery for 1 Cup semolina is perfect for us. You can reduce if you don’t like your sheera extra sweet.

* I have purposely added more than double of water to semolina as it leads to the sheera turning super soft which we love.

* You can increase the ghee to 1/4 Cup if desired.