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A slab of crunchy delight Gem specials
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Gem Chikki has redefined the conventional kadalai mittaai, says W. SREELALITHA
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Photos M. Periasamy
GOING NUTS! Peanut chikki and sesame balls
Gem Building is a tidy edifice that belies its activity: snack manufacturing. Inside, there are no ill-lit rooms, sooty walls, cobweb-swaying ceilings and noisy labourers that one might normally associate such production with. It is shockingly bright, airy, squeaky clean and quiet. But then, Gem Chikki is no ordinary sweet manufacturing unit.
From a sweet shop
As an offshoot of Ramaniklal D. Mithaiwala’s sweet shop, his son Dilip started Gem Chikki in 1984. Since then, it has given a complete makeover to the good old kadalai mittaai and its senior, the kambarkat of petty-shop fame. Lonavala’s South Indian counterpart, the company has redefined the way the peanut-jaggery sweet is perceived.
At Dilip’s office all the varieties of chikki — peanuts, dry fruits, cashew, pista, almonds, sesame, coconut, fried dhal — and puffed rice are neatly lined up. While most of them are irresistible slabs, there are also inviting orbs of white sesame and puffed rice. During the initial days, they experimented with many flavours, and their unique product is the sugar sweet of cashew hobnobbing with dried rose petals! There are also tiny squares of chocolate-groundnuts, made of cocoa and milk powder.
So, we try to find the secret behind the chikkis. The first preparation for the day is groundnut-jaggery sweet. Interestingly, this is their highest selling snack. It is also Dilip and his family’s favourite!
All the way from Gujarat
A syrup of glucose, jaggery and sugar is prepared the previous evening and set aside. Next, the peanuts. All the way from Gujarat, the peanuts are evenly roasted with sand, in a huge oven. Then comes the interesting part – peeling and splitting of peanuts. In they go into a peeling machine, and out they come, split, and stripped of their red coats. There, of course, are a few shy ones, who steadfastly cling to their coats. They are peeled manually. Now, the peanuts are ready.
The translucent syrup is boiled on a cauldron, and once it reaches a sticky consistency, it is removed from the stove, and peanuts are added. The reaction is quite a sight to behold. The peanuts and syrup magically come together, like our cricket team huddling fervently after scalping a mighty Aussie wicket!
Taste rich
Once they are evenly mixed, they are rolled with a particularly heavy rolling pin. And, cut into slabs! Here they are, in all lustrous wonder. For the tiny 50-gram slabs, a huge machine both rolls and cuts the blocks evenly. For the dry fruit mix, cashew, almond and pista go in along with thin strands of rich saffron and powdered cardamom. Another interesting sweet is the jaggery-til pellets. After the initial mixing, the slabs are inserted into a til roller that coughs up these delicious pellets, looking like tiny UFOs!
Large clientele
Drop a handful into your mouth and bite into an incredibly crispy snack. You are left wanting more. As they say, you just can’t stop with one. Small wonder the chikkis have eager clientele in Kerala, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Kolkata, and as far as the U.S., New Zealand and Australia.
As we leave, fresh syrup is getting ready to make more delicious snacks. It will have to be done, for at least 150 kg is produced every day.
And, by the way, there’s a surprise condiment added to the sugar sweets. Bite into a crunchy mouthful, and see if you can figure it out!
Cashew with dried rose petals
Chocolate peanuts
Dry fruit mix
Puffed rice balls
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
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