Shrikhand - Half Empty Nest Syndrome

My older son has just gone off to study some more ( much against his wishes at first). But now he is thrilled to go and make his own life. No more nagging from mom for a long time. But he did not bargain for a tech savvy  mom who can buzz him on Whatsapp every now and then and ending up being a real pain in the ass caring mom.  People keep asking me how I am feeling now that my nest is half empty. I feel quite guilty to say I am fine and very happy for him. I guess with technology the way it is today, he is just one ping away. So it has really not been that hard. And I always have my second one to keep me on my toes and not have enough time to miss Vish.

My older one is very partial to Shrikhand. This is his most favorite dessert and he can eat it by the bowlfuls.  So this post is for him. Hopefully he will soon learn how to make it on his own using greek yoghurt which does not need draining out the whey.

Simply put, Shrikhand is thick yoghurt drained of every last drop of moisture sweetened with sugar and flavoured with cardamom powder and saffron and garnished with almonds.
Usually, you make curd with full fat milk and tie it in a cheesecloth overnight to strain all the whey out. But this makes it a bit sour thanks to the Indian weather. So our way out is to make the curd and tie it and leave it to drain the refrigerator overnight. By the morning we have this nice thick and creamy yogurt left ready to be made into shrikhand which is not sour.

INGREDIENTS:

2 liters + 2 teaspoons Full Cream Milk

1/4 teaspoon Saffron

1 cup Sugar

1/2 teaspoon Cardamom Powdered

50 grams Almonds 

METHOD:

Make the milk into curd. Tie in a cheesecloth or muslin cloth and hang till all the whey has drained out. Remove hung curd into a bowl.

Heat the 2 teaspoons of milk and add saffron to it. Rub well till the milk gets an orange hue.

Mix into the hung curd. Add the sugar and cardamom powder and mix well. Check for sweetness. Add more sugar if required.

Blanch the almonds in a little hot water. Peel and dice the almonds into small bits.

Add to the Shrikhand. 

Serve cold.

ENJOY!!!!!!!!

Beetroot Halwa and Dad's Cooking Experiments

My father was your typical working person. Off to work in the morning, back in the evening, cursory look at marks and homework. He was a tremendously hardworking and focussed person for whom nothing was too much work. I wish I had one tenth of his focus and capacity for work. I am sure I would have been a lot better for it. He was an engineer by profession and a pretty good one at that. He never forgot what he learned in college till the last. He remembered formulae, theorems... everything...

But he had a secret love for cooking. He used to love to experiment in the kitchen. But he never looked at cooking from a chefs point of view. His approach was more from an engineer's angle. He would love to tell my mom that for dosas to be perfect, the temperature of the tava should be this and that. Or some other such similar things. But for all his efforts, my mom's experience won each time. She would effortlessly make these yummy foods and he would struggle to get the taste just right.

One his favourite foods to make was Beetroot Halwa. Don't ask me why. I have no idea. This is not a sweet that I have seen commonly on tables. But he liked it, I think. Once I grew up and developed a love for cooking, I realised that I would like to learn this as well and now it has become a firm favourite for me.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups Beetroot grated

2 cups Milk

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons Ghee (clarified butter)

1/4 teaspoon Cardamom powdered

1 tablespoon Cashewnuts for garnish

1 tablespoon Raisins

METHOD:

Cook the beetroot in the pressure cooker along with the milk till fully cooked and soft.

Open the pressure cooker and let out the steam.

Add the ghee and fry the halwa for a few more minutes till it starts coming together like a ball. It also develops a glossy look by now.

Add the sugar and cook till it thickens up again.

Fry the raisins and the cashewnuts in a teaspoon of ghee and add to the halwa along with the cardamom powder.

Serve cold or hot.

ENJOY!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE: Thanks Asha for pointing out the error of forgetting the sugar. As you can see now, it has been rectified.

Baby Badushas and Happy Deepavali

Here comes that time of the year again. Here's wishing all my readers a very happy Deepavali and a prosperous year ahead.

Deepavali is a festival celebrated with great fervor throughout the country. It is a festival eagerly looked forward to by one and all . It has no age barriers. Deepavali definitely means food, crackers, new clothes, food, visiting people, food, food....

That having been said it is also a festival which ends up being an eating orgy. Food keeps going down the system non stop and without any control at all. Sweets, savories, heavy pulaos, rich curries... the list goes on. In fact, we happily use the kids as an excuse to cook that much. The kids need to eat well.... They need to celebrate... Deepavali comes but once a year..... In the meantime, we have consumed these vast quantities of rich foods. And then struggle with our conscience and weight gain. Thats why our people knew the importance of Leghiyam at the end of the festivities. It is sorely needed to digest all that rich food eaten over the last few days.

We too make a lot of food during this season. In fact, I think I have used more oil and sugar in the last couple of days than in the entire two months preceding it. Just happily pouring in the oil into the frying pans and letting the sugar syrups bubble away to glory. What can I say? Deepavali comes but once a year...

Each year we have a combination of old favorites and a new addition to our feast. I love making one thing new each year. Something I have not tried out earlier. It helps in adding to my repertoire. It is also a good excuse to update my blog. I try to make something traditional and in keeping with the Deepavali spirit. I am all for innovation and creativity, but there is something to be said for the old faithfuls. They have been around for many years and will continue to be there for next so many.

This year I tried my hand at making Badushas. They are pretty simple to make and if you don't count calories (you should not- this is Deepavali, right? And Deepavali comes but once a year..) it is quite a nice sweet to eat for the festive season. It also lasts for a while so thats another plus point. The only thing is I made my badushas really baby sized. They looked cute and are perfect for one mouthful.

Ingredients:

3 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon cooking soda

4 big tablespoons ghee or clarified butter

4 cups sugar

1 teaspoon cardamom powder

Oil to deep fry

Method:

Sift the all purpose flour and baking soda till well mixed

Add the cardamom powder

Add in the ghee and gently rub in.

Add water a tablespoon at a time to make it into a dough.

Do NOT over knead the dough.

Make small lemon sized balls and make a depression with your forefinger. This helps cooking the badusha through.

Simultaneously, heat the sugar with 2 cups of water till a two string consistency is obtained. (Take a bit of the syrup between your fingers and pull apart. two strings should form)

Heat oil till medium hot. It should not be smoking.

Fry the badushas till golden brown and immerse into the syrup.

Leave the badushas to soak in the syrup for a minute or two.

Take out and let dry.

ENJOY!!!!!

Happy Deepavali and Badam Burfi

Happy Deepavali to all my readers. Its that time of the year again. I simply love Deepavali. It is really a festival that brings so much excitement into our lives. The new clothes the crackers, the sweet making, the yummy food that we eat. The list goes on and on. Deepavali is a time to bend all rules and simply enjoy.


My sister in law and I decided to make something really ultra simple this year. So Badam Burfi it is. Minimal ingredients, very simple to make but in my opinion, the lesser the number of ingredients, the taste of each ingredient really stands out. In this case there are only two main ingredients. Almonds and sugar. You can put in other add ons but that is entirely optional and suited to each ones taste. But it does not lack for anything even if you use just these two main ones.Now I had a lot of help cutting the burfi from my little niece ( I hope that explains the little uneven edges :) ). She very ably assisted me every stage even in the stirring and when she could not help, she hopped onto to a stool and gave me company in the long and hard process of waiting for the ball like stage.



Ingredients:

Almonds - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Little milk to grind the almonds maybe 2 -3 tablespoons

Method:

Soak the almonds in boiling hot water for a few minutes. Peel the skin.
Then soak in hot water for about 6 to 8 hours.
Grind to a smooth paste using the milk.
Place a piece of foil on the counter top and grease it with a little ghee or butter.



Pour the almond paste into a non stick pan along with the sugar and start cooking on a low flame.
Keep stirring and make sure the flame is on low. At this point you can add some cardamom powder if you like the taste.




After about 40 minutes to an hour it will start to gather together and become a ball.
When it does FINALLY (!!!!!%$#@%$$%^) become a ball and your hand is ready to fall off, Then take it off the stove.
Spread on the foil and flatten. Leave for a few minutes to cool and cut into shapes.

Gajjar Halwa and Celebrating the 10K milestone

Yes!!! Finally!!! Waited for a long time. I used to dream about it. When I first started the blog, I used to get so excited each time I got a hit. Everyday was something to look forward to. Get up wondering, how many new people have seen my blog today?


Then came along Food Blog Desam and my slow interaction with my fellow bloggers , and the numbers grew exponentially. It was a slow but very steady growth.


And now here I am having touched the 10,000 mark. ( I remember a movie, Twins where Danny Devito on hearing he could make 10 million dollars says "ten million dollars" in many different tones. Now if only I could write the words ten thousand in different ways. )
Ten thousand is a landmark figure and I am thrilled to be here.




To celebrate, I made Gajjar Halwa.


I once met a cook at a Guest House who was an old Sindhi man. He taught me this version of Gajjar Halwa. He is now no more but memories of his delicious Gajjar Halwa stay on.

It is a time consuming progress. Not laborious, just time consuming. Simple ingredients, and a very delectable result.

Gajjar Halwa is a hot favorite at home. Come December, we wait for the " Delhi" carrots to come in(the purple variety). Immediately we buy a few kilograms and now we are all set.




Ingredients

1 kg Purple carrots washed and peeled

1.5 litres milk ( seems like a lot but that is the key to yummy gajjar halwa)

350 grams sugar

3 tablespoons ghee

1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder

1 tablespoon each cashewnuts, almonds and raisins fried in a little ghee

Method:

Grate the carrots. Cook along with the milk till all the milk gets absorbed ( I warned you, it was going to be time consuming). This should easily take about an hour.

When done, the milk would have condensed into milk solids along with the cooked carrot.
Now add the ghee. Fry for a bit longer and then add the sugar. Keep cooking till the sugar dissolves well and is absorbed into the halwa.

Garnish with cashews, almonds and raisins and serve hot.

Enjoy.

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.