Last Minute Diwali Sweet Treat : Chocolate Burfi

This post brings you a Diwali (Deepavali) special recipe for my readers from my mom's kitchen, something that's ready in 30 minutes with easily available ingredients. So if you are like me, a totally last minute person, who is sometimes completely unprepared for the festivals that suddenly come up, this is the perfect recipe for you. 

In my usual style, last evening, I kept the pan on the flame and then called my mom, "How do you make your chocolate cake?". In my family, prior to my generation, the only cakes that were made at home were these kinda 'cakes' - or in culinary terms they would be better called 'squares' or 'fudge'. How soft or hard you want the burfi depends on how much time you allow this to be on heat. My recipe gives you an in between consistency, so it cuts into neat squares. If you want it more soft set, try to remove it from flame onto the baking sheet 5 minutes earlier. These burfis are pretty much trial and error, and are a little trickier than baking cakes, but they are fun experience with a fair bit of arm workout, which we all could do with, given how much we end up gorging on during the festive season. 

If you don't have cocoa powder or if you don't prefer chocolate flavour, [wondering if there are such people in the universe;)] you can avoid the cocoa and add powdered cardamom or a few saffron strands towards the end to get plain milk burfi.

So this special recipe from my mom's kitchen, especially for you! Your last minute, go-to Diwali treat recipe :) Happy Diwali from the Saffron Trail Kitchen to you and your loved ones.

For latest updates from my kitchen and to know about the workshops lined up from the Saffron Trail Kitchen, LIKE my facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/saffrontrail

Recipe for Chocolate Burfi (cake)
30 minutes
Makes 16-20 pieces, depending on the size

Ingredients
500 ml milk (3% cow's milk)
1 cup granulated sugar
4 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
1 tbsp rava (semolina, fine is better)
2 tbsp cocoa powder + 3-4 tbsp warm milk

Directions

1. Line a deep dish or a baking tray with a parchment paper or grease with a few drops of ghee and keep aside. A size of 8x4" will do, but if you have a bigger thaali / dish, make sure you don't spread over the entire surface or the burfis will be very thin and fragile.
2. In a heavy bottomed pan, place the milk, sugar, ghee and rava. Bring to boil on a high flame with constant monitoring and stirring. Once it comes to a boil, reduce flame and allow to simmer with reasonably constant stirring to make sure the milk does not burn or catch at the bottom of the pan, or doesn't boil over.
3. After stirring and simmering for around 20 minutes, the milk will turn much thicker, roughly the consistency of dosa / pancake batter. Whisk the cocoa powder in warm milk and pour into the thickening milk with constant stirring.
4. In another 5-8 minutes (continue stirring), the mixture will turn much thicker leaving the sides of the pan. At this point switch off flame, because it will continue to thicken in the residual heat.
5. Pour / transfer the mixture over the greased parchment, taking care to spread over a smaller area if you want thicker burfis.
6. Let this cool for 15 minutes after which you can cut into squares / rectangular bars with a sharp knife or a pizza cutter.
7. Store in airtight container and consume in 3-4 days. Keeping them in the fridge makes them too hard and I personally don't like them cold.

They make excellent homemade gifts on Diwali on any other festival. You could easily double the recipe, using 1 litre of milk. That will take around 45 mins-1 hour to thicken and prepare into burfis.

More Diwali treats from the archives:

Okkarai
Teratti Paal - Milk fudge
Dudhi Halva - bottle gourd fudge
Baked Karanji
5 minute microwaved besan laddoo
Eggless mawa cake
Khaja

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Recipe for Diwali Okkarai

Recipe for Okkarai

This is a jaggery-based, low-fat sweet made from chana dal / kadalai paruppu, does not require much ghee - perfect for health conscious folks.

Ingredients
1 cup chana dal
1 cup jaggery

5-6 cardamoms
1/2 cup freshly grated coconut
2 tbsp gingelly oil / you can use ghee if you dont have this oil
1-2 tbsp ghee for frying cashews
10-12 cashews, halved
2-3 tbsp of raisins



Preparation
Chana Dal
Dry roast the chana dal till golden brown and aromatic. This will take 7-8 minutes on medium heat. Soak this roasted dal in lots of water for 3 hours or so.
Coconut
Dry roast the coconut flakes till golden and aromatic. This will take around 5 minutes on low flame. Keep aside.
Cardamom
Remove the skin, grind the seeds along with a tsp of coarsely granulated sugar in mortar-pestle till you get a fairly fine powder. Keep aside.
Cashews and raisins
Heat 1-2 tbsp ghee and fry them till cashews are golden. Keep aside.



Directions

1. Grind the soaked chana dal to a fine paste, adding as little water as possible, to get a fairly thick doughy paste.
2. Place 3 cups of water in a big pressure cooker (5L+) / steamer. Make loose dumplings of the ground dal and place in a deep, big vessel that fits in the cooker.
3. Close the lid of the cooker MINUS the weight- so you use it as a steamer.
4. Steam the ground dal for 20-25 minutes on medium flame. Open the cooker after a few minutes and let these steamed dumplings cool.
5. Now, you can either grate these cooled dumplings or crumble them with your fingers. The former gives a more uniform look to the sweet.
6. In a large wok, hear 2-3 tbsp of gingelly oil (Nalla yennai) and fry the crumbled / grated dal mix on a low flame for 5-7 minutes. Keep aside.
7. Instructions for the Vella-paagu (Jaggery-pak)

Place 1/2 cup water in a heavy bottom pan.
Add 1 cup of crushed jaggery to this and let it melt on a high flame, with constant stirring.
Once the jaggery has melted thoroughly, lower flame and keep stirring.
In 7-8 minutes the mixture will get a deep colour and start thickening.
Keep a small plate handy, and pour a drop or so of this onto it, every 2-3 minutes.
Try rolling this drop between your thumb and index finger. If it turns into a ball and makes a sound when you drop it on the plate, your jaggery-pak (vella-paagu) is ready for the okkarai.

8. As soon as your paagu reaches this stage, turn off the flame. Remove the wok from the stove and start adding the ready dal crumble in batches, giving it a good mix to coat evenly. Once the crumble is all evenly mixed with the jaggery paagu - it will be soft, sweet and not sticky, but like perfectly cooked basmati rice - fluffy, dry and separate.
9. To this, add the roasted coconut, cardamom powder and fried cashews and raisins and mix gently.

Your Okkarai is ready for Diwali. If you like a richer taste, you can use more ghee to fry the cashews, but 1 tbsp is more than enough.

It is a labourious recipe, but with just two main ingredients - to get such a flavoursome and healthy festival sweet, it is totally worth it.

The recipe has been given to me by my maternal grandmother, who has been making this for every Diwali as far as I can remember.
I am so glad I made it this year and it is going to part of my Diwali cooking every year, now on. 

Hope you find this recipe useful to recreate your family tradition :)

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Diwali Delicacy : Eggless Mava Cake

[This post is a part of a joint project with my blog friend Raaga. Check that post here]

This is another ' Another Subcontinent' food forum inspired recipe. Food enthusiasts on the forum have been discussing the mava / mawa cake to shreds [or pieces] rather. Being in Bombay, close to many Parsi bakery shops, mava cake is really no big deal. It is considered a most Plain Jane cake, and I have seen kids who wont even consider this a cake, for there is nothing fancy-schmancy about it. Generally sold as cup cakes, packed in batches of six, these make a lovely tea time treat.

Merwans, a Parsi Bakery in Grant Road (Bombay) - is famous for it's Mava cake and the foodies on the forum were in the quest to reproduce the same magic in their kitchens. Ravum provided a recipe for an eggless version using condensed milk, khoya (solidified milk), milk, flour and butter. Khoya is also called mava, and that's how this cake gets it's name. Check a photo essay of the almost century old, Merwan's bakery here.

Since I was on a cooking low, I asked Raaga if she'll give me company and support in making this as a joint blog project. Even though she would be making it in Gurgaon and me in Bombay, it seemed like a great support to me and a fun thing to do. Being the great sport that she is, she managed to make it today and we decided to blog about it together.


[Recipe in Ravum's words]

Ravum's Eggless Mava Cake

Mava Cake

Wet Ingredients
1 tin Milkmaid (400 gms)
50-75 gm butter (1/2 to 3/4 slab of a 100 gm of Amul butter)
200 g mava (khoya)
1/2 cup milk (You can use water, but you the cake browns better with milk)
1/4 cup milk (this is to be used if while mixing the wet and dry ingredients, if your batter is too thick).

These must be heated together till butter melts and the mix is homogeneous. Cool it to room temperature.

Dry Ingredients
1.5 cups (US cup) maida (all-purpose flour)
1 tsp baking powder
2 cardamom (peel and powder the seeds)
Pinch of saffron - pound with a pestle with a bit of sugar
Cashew nuts

Sift the maida and baking powder three times (for volume). Add the cardamom, saffron, and cashew nuts.

Whisk the dry and wet ingredients together. Use the 1/4 cup of milk if the batter is too thick. The final consistency should be that of idli batter, or the besan batter used for making pakoda. Bake in a greased pan till light brown on top. [I baked at 175 C for 20 minutes in a 6 cup tube pan]

Raaga made cupcakes out of these and you'll get more details from her on her space.

Many thanks to Ravum of the AS food forum for sharing this recipe and Veena for her generous tips.

This is my submission to Vee's Diwali special Jihva event.

Here's wishing all of you a very Happy Diwali and a wonderful year ahead. May the festival of lights, bring lots of light and happiness into your lives.

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Diwali Delicacy: 5 minute Besan Laddoos

Ta da....presenting a couple of Diwali delicacies for you after the long silence.

Talking about Laddoos, i have never been too fond of them, except for Moti Choor Laddoo, which I would never dream of making at home. Any part of India and you'll find several varieties of them made with a variety of flours, and methods. As far as I can understand, for any laddoo made from using flour, the flour needs to be roasted till aromatic and during the roasting process, a certain amount of fat like ghee is used to cook the flour while roasting. Some more fat is used to bind the sweetened roasted flour into round shapes and a laddoo is born.

Not being the Laddoo liking girl, and my husband also not being a guy who is especially fond of them, I have never tried making them. When this particular discussion on Diwali treats went on and on about the quick and easy, microwave besan laddoos, I had to make this to take to my parents and aunts for Diwali, because this is something they all love.

Each batch makes 10. The first batch I followed the recipe to the T, just increasing the microwave time as the flour did not seem roasted to my satisfaction as per the given time in the recipe. In the final stage of binding it into laddoos, I realised that the ghee quantity can be considerably reduced from the original 1/3rd cup as I have seen the laddoos made in my family to be much drier.

Microwave Besan Laddoos
Active time: 5-7 minutes
Makes: 10 pieces
Category: Festival sweet
Source: Adapted from Samsung Microwave recipes

Ingredients
1 cup besan [gram flour]
1/4 cup ghee
1/2 cup powdered sugar (sold in Bombay during festival times as 'Pithi Saakhar')
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
10 halves of cashew nuts fried in a little ghee for decoration

Directions
1. In a large microwave safe bowl, mix the besan and ghee. Microwave on HIGH for 5 minutes stirring well every one minute. [increase 2 more min if your machine power is low]

2. Once the flour seems slightly darker in colour and richly aromatic, remove from oven and allow to cool completely. This will take upto half an hour.

3. Once cooled, add 1/2 cup powdered sugar [NOT icing sugar], with cardamom powder into the roasted flour. Knead well to mix and shape into 10 balls pressing a slice of fried cashew on top.

4. These will harden as they cool. Store in airtight container.


This is my entry to Meeta's Monthly Mingle - Traditional Feasts and well as Anna's [Morsel and Musings] Festive Fair 2007.

Tee at Bhatukli has blogged about Microwave Besan Laddoos too.

The next Diwali Delicacy is a joint project between me and Raaga. I shared the recipe with her and we decided to do it together in our respective kitchens. It was fun, though we did not do it on the same day together. I made it on Saturday and she's just done making it so that's coming up in the next post. Keep guessing!

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Seven-Cup Cake for Ganesh Chaturthi

In case you see the picture and wonder why the cupcakes are flat, this is a 7 cup-cake and not 7 cupcakes.  These are the ones that my mom, aunts and grandmom turn out into perfect little squares during festivals, in a jiffy. I'm always a bit wary about making them because of too much sugar and ghee and there's the uncertainty of them turning out properly. These can be made with just milk and sugar - called 'milk cake' or with chick pea flour, sugar and ghee called Mysore Pak, or even with nuts like almonds and cashews. As a child, these were the only cakes that were made at home apart from some failed sponge cake experiments conducted in the pressure cooker. I wanted to recreate some of that childhood magic and take this to my parents and relatives for Ganesh Chaturthi tomorrow.

Traditional Indian 'cakes' need no baking, because they are not actually cakes but fudgey sweets made using sugar, milk and some other ingredients, a bit of slaving over the stove, some elbow grease – and your 'cake' will be ready. Small pieces of these goodies go a long way in satisfying your sweet tooth. Some of these 'cakes' require almost an hour of stirring over a hot stove. This one, on the other hand takes 20 minutes at the most, but the results make people think otherwise. If you need larger quantities, make this in batches, that way you can give your elbow some rest in between batches.




Seven cup Cake
Category: Indian sweet, Milk sweet, Festival food
Time taken: Under 30 minutes
Makes: One 9 X 9 sheet 1/2" thick, can be cut into 25 squares

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Ingredients

1 cup besan (gram flour)
1 cup ghee
1 cup freshly scraped or dessicated coconut
1 cup milk
2 cups sugar [if your sugar is not as sweet then add 1/4-1/2 cup more]

A few saffron strands or cardamom powder for flavouring

Directions
Grease a 9 X 9 baking sheet (or a deep dish) ghee and keep aside.
In a heavy bottomed wok, place 2 tbsp ghee.
Add the cup of besan to this and on a very low flame, roast it till fragrant - say around 4-5 minutes. Keep a close watch and saute constantly so as not to let the gram flour brown or burn.
In a large bowl, mix all the remaining ingredients including flavouring of choice {saffron strands or cardamom].
Once the gram flour is aromatic, tip the contents of the bowl into a wok. Keeping the flame low at all times, constantly keep stirring the contents till reduced to nearly half. For the quantities specified, this takes 15-17 minutes.
At the end of 15 minutes, immediately transfer the contents of the wok onto the greased baking sheet.
Smoothen out the surface with the edge of a flat spatula or by patting under few layers of foil, to make the heat bearable.
Score into squares or diamonds using a pizza cutter /knife.
Cut out when completely cool.

(The recipe is traditionally called a seven cup cake or the seven heaven cake because of three cups of sugar and 1 each of other 4 ingredients, making it easy to remember. However, in my experience, 2 cups of sugar is more than enough for our generation's sweet tooth. And even my grandparents are quite happy with that :)

Tags: paal cake, seven cup cake, indian sweets, tamil sweets, no-bake cake, festival food, Besan burfi, Saffron Trail, Recipe, Food, Indian food blog, Healthy eating, Healthy living, Mumbai, India

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Peanut sesame balls

This is another such recipe that turned out accidentally. I buy half a kilo of peanuts at one time. Due to the humid Indian weather, they have to be either stored in the fridge or roasted and stored in air tight containers, in order to protect them from fungus and other pests. Coarsely crushed roasted peanuts are wonderful as a garnish on most Indian salads. A handful of those make a healthy snack at tea time for a protein kick. When my house-help fine ground a whole cup of peanuts instead of pulsing them coarse, I knew I had to do something with them. I keep finely powdered roasted sesame seeds in a bottle for all those recipes that ask for Tahini. Tahini or sesame seed paste in sesame oil is something that I don't find regularly in supermarket shelves here.

Combine finely powdered peanuts with powdered roasted sesame seeds. Sweeten them with natural jaggery. Flavour it with cardamom if you please and what you get is a nutrition blockbuster which is a treat for tastebuds as well.

That is all there is really. And it takes you less than 10 minutes to make this nutty Indian sweet. But if you must have the 'recipe' - here it is.

Peanut Sesame Laddoos

Time taken - Under 10 minutes
Category - Healthy sweets, Indian sweets, Sugar free sweets
Recipe source - My own idea

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Ingredients

1 cup peanuts
1/2 cup white sesame seeds (til / ellu)
1/2 cup dry jaggery powder
Cardamom powder to taste

Roasting peanuts in a skillet is a time consuming affair. That's where the microwave comes to our rescue. Spread the nuts in a single layer in a microwave safe dish. For a crisp texture, nuke at HIGH for about 4-5 minutes under supervision. Cool for 5-10 minutes. I didn't remove the skins. You may do so if you like. It doesn't affect the taste.

Roast the sesame seeds in a deep skillet until they are aromatic and start popping. This will take around 3-4 minutes on a medium flame.

In a food processor, pulse the roasted peanuts first till you get an almost fine powder. Do the same with the sesame seeds.

Add all 3 ingredients together in the end and pulse for 2 minutes or so, until the natural oils are released and they come together.

Remove onto a plate. Add cardamom powder. Mix well and shape into balls of desired size. You don't need any extra ghee / fats to hold the laddoo together. The natural oils in the nuts and seeds do a great job of it.

Ideas

• Try dipping these balls in melted chocolate and cooling them to have chocolates with an Indian filling.
• You could also roll them in dried coconut shavings for another layer of taste.

News from the food-blogging scene

JFI stars coconut this time and Ashwini of Food for thought is the garcious hostess. Check out event details here.

Weekend Breakfast Blogging has been announced too. Its Christmas Special and you'll find the details here.

Tags:
sugarfree sweets, Indian sweets, peanuts, sesame seeds, til, ladoo, fatfree sweets, healthy sweets, dessert, dessert under 10 minutes

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Teratti Paal - Mother of all Tambram sweets in Diwali Blogging - III

Continued from Diwali Blogging- I and II.....



It's not like I've been going crazy cleaning and cooking. Nankhatais were made almost 10 days ago. Khajas were made last Sunday. Then there was a big break. My domestic help fell ill and I managed whatever cleaning I could do by myself...I can see all my friends in the US say- No maids here! But the kind of dust that settles on everything that has stayed in one place for more than 5 minutes, is so typically BOMBAY. I often tell DH, if I didn't move for a couple of hours, I'd be covered with dust myself.

The baked Karanjis took shape 3 days ago and then it was only today that I decided to make the stuff for the finale. Since I'd bought some extra milk for the day, I wanted to make a milk based sweet. I thought - why not Teratti Paal? For all those who aren't familiar with this one - this recipe has only two ingredients - Milk and Sugar. Milk is boiled and boiled some more (read as atleast 40 minutes per Litre) - to obtain a semi solid consistency after which sugar is mixed in until it melts and the milk and sugar come together as one. Weddings, auspicious occasions, poojas, nothing in my family is complete without this one sweet. Since its got this 'auspicious' tag attached to it, I'm always wary of making such stuff and causing some goof up. But today, I had to try this. As usual, called up mom, made a mental note of the process and emptied the milk into my huge non stick wok. Stir, stir, stir, add the sugar, and teratti paal is ready! You really want me to write the 'recipe' for you?





Ingredients
1.5 L Whole cow's milk
1 cup sugar
1 tsp ghee

Directions
Take an absolutely clean kadai / wok. Non stick variety is better. Pour the milk. Bring it to a boil and then keep the flame on minimum. Let the milk simmer for around 25-30 minutes. You cna leave a wooden ladle into the wok, so that the milk does not overflow.
Please keep stirring off and on, so that as the milk thickens, it does not stick to the bottom.
After around 25 minutes, you notice that the milk has thickened to a thready consistency. At this point add the sugar and keep stirring. It will take another 15 minutes or so, until the sugar and milk have turned into a semi solid consistency with no liquid floating around.
Turn off the flame. Mix in a tsp of ghee into the teratti paal and remove it into a bowl / plate.
The subtle taste of this one is to be experienced. But I shall try and explain. Its rough, granular, mildly fragrant from the milk and sweet of course.

Also made a quickie dudhi halwa (bottlegourd fudge) and Gulab Jamun from the Gits pack according to pack instructions. I must tell you that this is the first time ever I tried my hands at these . The balls almost seems like seedai. Or may be like marbles. A quick phone call to my aunt rescued the situation and the jamuns turned out nice and fluffy, floating happily in a saffron-cardamom flavour infused syrup. See them there, and you'll agree with me :)

Recipe for Dudhi Halwa is here....

Dudhi Halwa
1 tsp ghee
3 cups grated dudhi (Used 3/4 of a bottle gourd)
1 tbsp grated beetroot (for colour - optional)
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
100 gms Khoya (solidified milk)
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Directions
In a pan, take a tsp of ghee. Put in the grated dudhi and beetroot. Saute for 2-3 minutes.
Add the sugar and the milk to the dudhi. Boil them together for around 10 minutes until the dudhi is soft and cooked.
Put in the khoya, grated nutmeg and keep stirring vigourously until all the water / milk has evaporated. This will take atleast 15 minutes. The fudge will be a pale pink colour and will collect into a ball in the corner of the pan. Take it off the flame.
Remove it into a deep dish. Flatten well with spatula. Once it has cooled a bit, chill it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Remove and cut into desired shapes.
This is a very quick and yummy, all Indian dessert. If you don't get Khoya, condensed milk should work fine too. Serve it warm with a scoop of vanilla icecream and your guests will be licking the spoon (and the bowl) clean!


Here's the list of Diwali goodies - 2006
Sweet and Savoury Nankhatai
Spicy Khajas
Baked Karanjis
Teratti Paal
Dudhi Halwa
Gulab Jamun

Wishing you and your families a wonderfully JOYOUS DIWALI with good health and prosperity.

Tags: South Indian, Tambram cooking, Indian, milk sweet, festival food, teratti paal, karanji, nankhatai, khaja, Saffron Trail, Recipe, Food, Indian food blog, Healthy eating, Healthy living, Mumbai, India

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Baked Karanjis in Diwali Blogging - II

Yeah yeah - I know! Diwali is not the time for thinking 'healthy' or doing kanjoosi with ghee, sugar and oil. But when I think of the 500 crunches I am made to do each morn, I automatically say - thanks but no thanks. And luckily I have no sweet tooth. For all the ghee-sugar lovers, there are more goodies coming in the final Diwali Blogging - III. I know you'll love them. But think of the diabetics, people struggling to lose weight and yet doing their bit to enjoy Diwali - and you'll love these baked Karanjis too. It's not my brainwave. It's Sanjeev Kapoor's. Atleast it was telecast in his program Khana Khazana - one of the longest running series in the history of Indian television.

This recipe allows a lot of variation. While the original was stuffed with pistachios, cashews, figs and dates - I used only dried figs, dates and raisins sprinkled with cardamom powder. This is a no sugar recipe but there is plenty of natural sugar to keep you happy.

I have pasted the recipe from the source - i.e. http://www.sanjeevkapoor.com.
Pictures are mine though :)


Baked Karanjis
Type: Modified Indian dessert, Sugar-free dessert, Diabetic recipe
Time taken: Around one hour - when made without mould
Makes 10 pieces

Ingredients
For outer layer
1 cup Refined flour (maida)
2 tbsps Semolina (rawa)
2 tbsps Ghee
1/4 cup Milk
For stuffing
3/4 cup Seedless dates (chopped)
3/4 cup Dried figs, (anjeer) (chopped)
15-20 Cashewnuts (crushed)
15-20 Pistachios (crushed)
1 tsp Green Cardamom Powder
1 tbsp Roasted poppy seeds (khus khus)
2 tbsps Milk
2 tbsps Ghee (melted)

Method:

1. Take refined flour in a bowl. Add semolina, ghee and milk and knead into a semi soft dough. Divide into equal portions and shape them into pedas. Keep them covered with a damp cloth.

2. Preheat oven to 180°C.

3. To make the stuffing take dates and figs in a bowl. Add crushed cashewnuts, pistachios, green cardamom powder, roasted poppy seeds and mix. Mash lightly with fingers and add a little milk.

4. Roll out a dough peda. Place it in the karanji mould. Put a small portion of the prepared filling in the hollow. Apply a little water on edges, close the mould and press firmly.Remove the excess dough and use again. Similarly make the remaining karanjis.

5. These can be made without the mould too.Place the karanjis on a greased baking tray. Brush them with a little ghee and bake at 180°C for twenty to twenty five minutes. Cool, store in an airtight container.

Modifications:
I added a pinch of baking powder to the dough. Also omitted the nuts and the poppy seeds.

I wont try to convince you that these were as good as the fried ones. But considering that the ingredients are relatively healthy and so is the baking process, the karanjis tasted good enough. Filling tasted quite sweet. Guess I should have baked them for a lesser time as the cover was quite hard.


Tags:
Diwali, Deepavali, Diwali recipe, sugar-free desserts, diabetic recipe, Indian sweet, Festival food

See what my friends have made this Diwali -

Shankarpalas at Vaishali's

Shankari has made a whole lot of goodies too.

Saffron has made Rava ladoos

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Spicy Khajas & Nankhatai in Diwali Blogging - Part I

Continuing from here....

Cleaning is half-way through and home is already looking beautiful. For most Hindus, Diwali is a wonderful excuse to spruce up the house, discard old unused stuff, bring in new little ideas and ofcourse make delicious food to share with loved ones.

I truly believe that old unused stuff brings in a stagnant negative energy. Simply getting a few new things and throwing away all the junk can makeover your home and bring in the positive energy. Gone are the days of whitewashing each Diwali - thanks to the expenditures involved and 'who-has-the-time'! For starters - just hanging up new curtains over the gleaming panes is making my bedroom look brand new and spacious. Here's what I've been upto...

- Panes have been scrubbed clean, enough for accident-prone me to walk into them

- Organised the kitchen cabinets well enough to find the right pots and pans in a jiffy

- Gave away stuff that we haven't used in the last 6 months

- Bought nice earthern lamps painted red and a red thoran to hang outside our door

- Also improvised on a boring, black side-table to make it colourful and bigger (Read as hold more junk)

- Brought in my favourite areca nut palm plant indoors to liven up the living space

Cut to our favourite topic - FOOD

I've been wanting to try Nankhatai - our goold ol' Indian cookie for quite some time. Doing a blog search on the same lead me to some blogger recipes for this cookie. Here are the recipes for the same:

Jyotsna's Nankhatais from Pune

Krithika making Nankhatais Jyotsna's style

Manasi's Plain Jane cookies - A cook @ heart

Vaishali's Narayan Kataar Naankhatai

After a great deal of blog hopping, I finally settled for Manasi's recipe with a bit of modification in technique.

I rolled the dough in cling film, chilled them and cut them into slices instead of rolling them into balls. I actually reduced the sugar to 1/4th cup and added a pinch of salt with coarsely powdered fennel seeds. It was a salty sweet version that will appeal to the sweet-lover as well as the savoury-lover.

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Spicy Khajas (Recipe adapted from bawarchi.com)

Deep fried savoury crisps

Type - Festival Food, Indian Snack

Time taken - Around one hour including drying time

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Ingredients:

1 cup gram flour (besan)

1/4 cup all purpose flour (maida)

1 tsp red chilli powder

1/2 tsp carom seeds and 1/2 tsp cumin seeds - roasted and crushed

Salt to taste - roughly 3/4 tsp

1 tbsp oil

Oil for frying ( Iused Saffola losorb)

Method:

1. Mix the flours with salt and spices.

2. Add water little by little to make a smooth and pliable dough. Knead with one tbsp oil into a smooth ball.

3. Divide into 4 big balls. Spread each ball into a big round (less than 1/2 cm thin). You can cut this into desired shapes. Prick both sides of all pieces with a fork.

4. Dry out the cut out pieces on a clean kitchen towel. Repeat the same process for the other 3 balls. Dry out the pieces for 20 minutes or so on the towel like shown in the picture below.

5. Heat about 1.5 cups of oil in a kadai. (use the one you prefer for deep frying)

Dried and ready to be fried

6. You can decide if the oil is hot enough by putting a small piece of dough. If it rises to the top immediately, the oil is ready.

7. Put the cut out pieces in batches and fry till golden brown on a medium flame. Drain excess oil on kitchen tissues. Store in airtight container.

This is my entry for the Special Edition Jihva hosted by Vee of Past, Present, Me.

Note:

You can add any of your favourite spices like black pepper, sesame seeds etc. to the dough. The original recipe asked for the dough to be rolled into small puris, but I found my method more practical.

Tags:

Diwali recipes, Deepawali, Indian snacks, festival food, Nankhatai, khaja, besan, savouries

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Just reminding you about Weekend Breakfast Blogging - the theme for this month is Twist in the Plate. Did you jazz up an ordinary breakfast for Diwali? Did you try your favourite blogger's recipe with your own twist? Did you turn a sweet one into a savoury one?

Come on, share it with us. You have time till 29th of this month to send me your entries. WBB turns monthly and theme-based this month onwards. Read more about it here.

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Celebrating Tamil New Year with Payasam

Payasam (read what Wikipedia has to say) especially in the South of India is considered to be God's favorite food. Hence it generally occupies center stage in most festivals.
My mom makes the regular Paal Payasam- which is made with cooked rice and milk, or Semiya Payasam- made with vermicilli and milk. In most payasams, milk is kept at a simmer for a long time, so that it gets the pinkish hue and tastes rich.
My payasam is a quicker version and uses cashewnuts instead of the traditional rice or vermicilli.

Cashewnut Payasam
Ingredients:
4 cups 2% milk ( i prefer this, you could use whole milk too)
3 tbsp sugar
8-10 cashewnuts
Few strands saffron
1 tbsp raisins
1/4 tsp Almond essence (optional )

Method:

1. Preparing cashew paste- If you have soaked the cashews overnight / for few hours, they are ready to be ground with 1/2 cup of milk, into a very fine paste. If you are a last minute person like me, you could soak them in a little water and microwave on HIGH for 3 min. Let them remain in that hot water for 5-10 more minutes. Once cooled, grind them with some milk as above.

2. Boil the milk on the side in a heavy bottomed pan. Once boiled, let it simmer. Add the sugar, saffron and raisins. Add the cashew paste. Make sure you keep stirring so that the mixture doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

3. Let the milk simmer for 5 more minutes. Add the almond essence. The cashew paste will thicken the milk such that it will stick to the back of the ladle. It's time to remove it from the flame.

4.Garnish with 2-3 strands of saffron and a Holy Basil leaf. Offer it to the Gods and then enjoy chilled.

Putthandu Nal Vazhthugal!

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