Thursday, October 25, 2007

Rabdi and Reminiscing About Childhood




I remember as a kid, everytime we had a party or an official do at home, my mother's favorite dessert to make would be rabdi with jelly. She was not at all culinarily challenged, but for some strange reason this would show up again and again. Even if there were other desserts, this just had to be on the menu. It was total overkill, even if it was tasty overkill.


At that time, I think my siblings and I were heartily sick of rabdi with anything and so it was many years before I ventured close to anything which looked, smelt or tasted like Rabdi. But then as you grow up, childhood tastes start haunting you and you just have to recreate the taste for yourself. They take on a larger than life image (or should I say taste in this case?) in your mind's eye and soon you start craving for those tastes even if it is something you once hated.

So, sure enough I started wanting to eat rabdi again (obviously many many years after mom stopped making it).

Rabdi is one of the easiest desserts to make and goes awesomely well with any hot dessert like hot jalebis made on the spot, hot gulab jamuns , malpuas... rabdi pretty much goes with anything. Need I mention rabdi falooda, (as if I was not drooling enough already. To think I hated it so much at one time).


Think now I should head on and give you the actual recipe before I digress into other things.


Ingredients


2 Litres full cream milk
½ cup sugar
6-8 almonds slivered
10- 12 cardamoms, peeled and coarsely powdered
Few strands saffron dissolved in a teaspoon of hot milk


Method


Heat milk in a deep dish. Bring gently to a rolling boil. Reduce the flame and continue boiling the milk. Scrape/skim the top cream and keep adding it to the boiling milk. When reduced to half its quantity, add the sugar, cardamom powder and saffron. Garnish with slivered almonds. Chill and serve either by itself or with any of the items mentioned above.


This also goes as my entry for Think Spice Think Saffron hosted by Sunita of Sunitas World. Hope I am not too late.

16 comments:

FH said...

That looks fabulous! All I need now is few Jalebis to go with it!!:)
Haven't seen you in my blog for a while, busy? :))

Padma said...

I love Rabdi but the name always reminds me of Mrs. Laloo Prasad Yadav ;)

Photo looks awesome TBC!

Finla said...

It looks delicious

Laavanya said...

That must be a delicious dessert... Looks lovely.

sunita said...

Kamini,I love rabdi...but, hey Padma, that was sooooo funny :-D..

Suganya said...

This by itself looks like payasam. Add some cooked rice to it..ooh, thats paal payasam.

Sivani said...

Rabdi/basundi is my all-time favorite dessert!

The best I have ever had is from Daspalla in Visakhapatnam: they keep it in the refrigerator, and serve it in what looks like little plastic ice-cream cups.

The layers formed inside the liquid are utterly divine - no matter how I try I cannot get mine to be the same :(

Tee said...

Rabdi and Jilebis....i am drooling! Rabdi sure is a royal sweet and I absolutely love it :)

Raks said...

Looks delicious, good entry kamni.:))

Namratha said...

Looks great Kamini:)

Srivalli said...

thats looks very tempting indeed..

Sharmi said...

very pretty looking dessert in a lovely dish. well presented!

Swaroopa said...

looks temptingly delicious!!

Anonymous said...

I didn't know rabdi and basundi are the same... thanks Sivani! i have never had jalebi, jamoon-rabdi combination... now this recipe has tempted me a lot:)

Anonymous said...

Hi, I found what appears to be your beautiful photo mangled and cut up and posted on a times of india article. Do watermark your photos whenever possible. This is the URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/-1647295497.cms

Kamini said...

Hi Anon, Thanks so much for bringing this to my notice. Need to follow up with TOI today.