Mukhwas

India's after-dinner mouth freshener: fennel seed roasted and sugar-coated with sesame, coconut and rose, set out in a dish by the door

Origin: Ahmedabad, Gujarat & Western India

From the journey of Fennel.

Mukhwas means mouth freshener, and it is one of the few uses of a spice anywhere in the world that has no real parallel: a dish of seeds, sugared and coloured, set out to be taken by the pinch at the end of a meal and chewed slowly. Every Indian restaurant keeps a bowl by the door, most households keep a tin, and the fixed centre of the mixture is fennel. The reasoning behind it is digestive and is at least partly sound. Anethole, the aromatic in fennel, is mildly antispasmodic, and fennel has been eaten after food for that reason from Pliny onwards. In the Ayurvedic scheme fennel is classed as a cooling spice, which is also why Gujarat, which is very hot for a large part of the year, uses more of it than anywhere else. Whether chewing a teaspoon of seed after dinner does anything measurable is a smaller question than the sheer consistency of the habit. What goes in beyond the fennel varies by household and by region. Sesame and desiccated coconut for body, ajwain or carom for sharpness, dried melon seed, a few threads of rose or a drop of rose water, and often the sugar-coated fennel called dhana dal's cousin, saunf goli, in its startling pastel colours. The tricolour version sold commercially owes its greens and pinks to food colouring and nothing else. A note about the silver. Some commercial mukhwas is finished with vark, the edible silver leaf also used on sweets, and some of what circulates is aluminium rather than silver; the distinction matters and reputable sellers state it. This recipe leaves it out.

Ingredients

Base

  • 150 g fennel seed
  • 50 g white sesame seeds
  • 40 g desiccated coconut, fine
  • 20 g melon or sunflower seeds
  • 1 tsp ajwain (carom) seeds

Coating

  • 60 g caster sugar
  • 3 tbsp water
  • 1 tsp rose water
  • 0.5 tsp fine salt

To finish

  • 1 tbsp dried rose petals, crumbled
  • 2 tbsp sugar-coated fennel (saunf goli), optional

Method

  1. Roast the fennel seed in a dry heavy pan over a low heat for four or five minutes, shaking constantly.
  2. Take it off the moment it smells sweet and grassy and has gone one shade darker. Fennel scorches easily and burnt fennel is bitter for the whole batch.
  3. Tip it out onto a cold plate at once, since the pan will keep cooking it.
  4. Roast the sesame in the same pan until it colours and starts to pop, then the coconut for barely a minute until pale gold, then the melon seeds and ajwain briefly. Do each separately, as they toast at different rates.
  5. Combine all the roasted seeds in a wide bowl and let them cool completely.
  6. Make the coating: dissolve the sugar in the water over a low heat and simmer until it reaches a thin syrup that just coats a spoon, about three minutes. Do not let it caramelise.
  7. Stir in the rose water and salt, take it off the heat, and pour it over the seed mixture whilst stirring hard.
  8. Keep stirring as it cools. The syrup will crystallise back to a fine white powder over the seeds, which is exactly what should happen and is what gives mukhwas its frosted look.
  9. Spread the mixture on a tray and leave it in a warm dry place for an hour to dry fully.
  10. Break up any clumps with your fingers, fold in the rose petals and the coloured saunf goli if using, and store in an airtight tin.
  11. Serve a small dish of it after a meal, taken by the pinch and chewed rather than swallowed.

Notes

The whole thing turns on roasting the fennel to exactly the right point and no further; take the pan off early rather than late and tip the seed onto a cold plate immediately. Roast each seed separately, since they toast at very different rates. The syrup should crystallise back into a powdery frosting rather than setting into a glaze, so keep stirring as it cools. It keeps for three months in an airtight tin and loses its aroma once opened repeatedly, so store it in something small. Leave the silver leaf out unless you can be certain of its provenance.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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