Set up by means of an eleven-yr-vintage Turkish boy almost a century again, the candy dish has now turn out to be part of the town’s culinary pleasure.
The Old City in Hyderabad has testimonies to tell from every corner and nook- and a lot of these are appetizing stories, memories that make you sense hungry immediately. Food right here oozes of history, subculture, and masses of fat! Every keep is at least half of- a-century antique and may have signboards which might be fading out but the culinary pride on offer is unrivaled.
As lots as Hyderabad is synonymous with the Hyderabadi dum biryani, it is also well-known for its conventional desserts – from apricot chocolates to cucumber mithais, Hyderabad has lots to thrill the sweet enamel. And in case you are in Hyderabad, trying greater than just the biryani, Jouzi Halwa, a Turkish sweet on the Hameedi Confectioners, is just what you need.
Situated contrary to the well-known Mozam Jahi marketplace, the shop is hard to miss. Hameedi neither has plush interiors nor the surprising neon signboards that welcome visitors from some distance. But, the traffic bottleneck proper in the front of the store and the aroma wafting from Hameedi is enough for humans to show their heads and seize a plate of the Jouzi Halwa before the signal turns green!
Jouzi Halwa is a wealthy candy dish, and even though a serving may not appearance too big, devouring the whole of it’s far a feat. Bright pink in color and crowned with cashew nuts and silver foil, Jouzi tastes like a richer variant of pavlova however sweeter and a lot heavier.
As rich as the Jouzi Halwa is, the richer is its records, says Mohammed Anees, the existing proprietor of Hameedi Confectioners. The keep is over a one hundred years old and was set up via an 11-12 months-antique Turkish boy who later went to turn out to be the favorite hallway of the ultimate Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan.
“I have misplaced rely on how many years the shop has been in life now. It becomes located with the aid of my grandfather, Mohammad Hussain, when we changed into nevertheless a younger boy. He changed into of Turkish descent and his father became a soldier in the Nizam’s army and he passed away while grandfather becomes just two years old. Since he became within the navy, the circle of relatives used to receive a pension from the state and grandfather was the best toddler who had to fend for his mom,” Anees narrates.
With the money that got here from his father’s pension, Hussain set up a small sweet shop in front of the Mozam Jahi marketplace alongside along with his buddy, who turned into a great deal older in age and a cook by way of career. “Though he was best eleven years of age, he had the physical built of a miles older character and all of the more, changed into obsessed with food,” Hussain says.
And thus Jouzi Halwa traveled all of the manners from Turkey to Hyderabad via Hussain who brought the dish to the city.
But the records don’t cease there. For a long time, Hussain’s save had no name but commercial enterprise turned into ripe because of the honestly tasty form of chocolates that Hussain served. Also, Hussain becomes one of the first few confectioners who set up a shop in the coronary heart of the Nizam’s metropolis.
“Within no time, the flavor of Jouzi Halwa had traveled to all components of Hyderabad. One day, Mir Osman Ali, who changed into passing by the store, stopped to have a plate of the tons pointed out halwa. The Nizam loved the sweet a lot that he named the store after his brother-in-regulation, Abdul Hamid, who became then the prince of Turkey,” Anees recounts.
Jouzi Halwa then became frequently exported to Turkey for Abdul Hamid, who fell truly in love with the sweet. Today, Jouzi Halwa is exported to nearly all parts of the arena, now not by way of the confectioners, however via folks that come to Hyderabad and wish to take lower back a reminiscence from the metropolis.
Ahmed says that nobody has managed to copy the dish that they serve yet.
“A lot of our employees have been poached via different confectioners within the town. Many of them, who worked for years for Hameedi, at the moment are in exclusive components of the town, in special stores. But nobody makes the halwa as tasty as we do,” he claims.
Almost a quintal of Jouzi Halwa is sold every day in the shop. In what may also sound like an exaggeration, it takes 16 hours to make one batch of the candy. Jouz in Urdu approach oats. The key component of the candy is oat milk, which is blended into a whole lot of sugar, dry fruits, ghee and zafran (saffron). The aggregate is then stirred for sixteen hours, employees switching shifts every two hours. What makes the candy clearly specific is the name of the game hint of spice, which offers a unique flavor to the dish. It tastes like a mix of clove and cardamom but Anees says that it is nutmeg.
