Mango Phirni Recipe

I really love the fact that I have super helpful neighbors. When I had to cut short a function in the apartment complex due to unexpected visitors and was at a loss for what to make in a hurry, a neighbor walked back along with me and gave me a big bowl of paddu/paniyaram batter. I had to return her vessel and again I was left wondering what to make. Normally, when giving back the vessel, you put something sweet into it and do not return it empty. While I was thinking of what is the simplest sweet dish that I can make, my eyes fell upon the mangoes in the fruit basket and the easiest sweet I could think of making with it was Mango Phirni - totally my kind of dish- takes less than half an hour to make.

The phirni is an Indian Rice pudding that is normally served in earthenware and is topped with chopped nuts. It is made from a base of milk and ground rice. Rose water or Kewra Water is normally used to add flavor to the phirni.  It is not overtly heavy on the stomach and you can eat a whole cupful without too much guilt. Mine is not the traditional dish. First of all, it has mangoes in it. These days, the mango phirni that is served in the restaurants has mango puree in it. I could not be bothered with making puree, so I just added chopped mangoes into it. It is nice to bite into chunky pieces of mango while eating the phirni. Garnish can be done with the nuts of your choice. I added blanched almonds just before serving the mango phirni.

Preparation Time: 10 minutes ( excluding soaking time)
Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Cooling Time: 1 hour
Serves 4

Ingredients for Mango Phirni

3 cups milk 

3 tbsp Basmati Rice
5-6 cashewnuts (optional)

8 tsp sugar 

1 mango chopped 

A large pinch of cardamom powder

Nuts for garnish 

Method to make Mango Phirni

Soak the Basmati Rice in water for about an hour and half. 

Once done, start boiling the milk. While the milk is boiling, grind the rice to a fine paste in the mixer. Make sure there are no grains. You could add a few soaked cashewnuts too to this while grinding. 

When the milk almost comes to a boil, add to it the sugar and the rice paste. Now start mixing everything together and keep stirring constantly. It is best to do it with a whisk. Add the cardamom powder into it too. As you are stirring it together, you will be able to feel the resistance building up.

Whisk it on low flame for about fifteen minutes. By now it would have considerably thickened. Turn off the heat. At this point, I transferred it to individual containers for the two of us and the rest into her bowl.

Allow it to cool for about half an hour. Now chop up the mangoes into small cubes. These go into the chilled phirni.

Top the phirni with a spoonful of mango cubes.

Mix the mango cubes well into the phirni. Garnish it with the chopped nuts and refrigerate again for at least half an hour. Upon refrigeration, it gets set and you can cut it from the kulhad with a spoon and enjoy a simple yet fulfilling dessert.

Dessert Pizza

Ok. So this is another quickie. I had tasted it in Pizza Corner a long time ago. Did not really see it on their menu afterwards. A sweet pizza, with a generous amount of chocolate sauce and banana and pinapple topping. When i spotted the wheat pizza base at MK retail, i was suddenly reminded of the sweet pizza and wanted to try it out. After a couple of sms exchanges with my friend about a similar recipe made during her childhood, i set out to make this really simple dish.

Preparation Time: 10 Mins
Cooking Time: 10 Mins
Serves 2

Ingredients:

One medium pizza base, i used the wheat base
2 small bananas cut into rounds, i used elakki
2 tbsp raisins, i used the black color variety
2 tbsp roasted melon seeds
1 tsp unsalted butter

For the sauce:

1 tsp butter
4 tbsp milk
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cocoa powder, i used cadbury
a large pinch of cinnamon powder

Method:

Mix together the ingredients meant for the sauce in a bowl.
Place the pizza base on a hot tava with a tsp of  butter on it. Let the bottom of the base crisp up and brown.

Now spread the sauce on the pizza. Arrange the toppings on the sauce. Drizzle with melon seeds. Brush with some melted butter. Grill it in the microwave for 8-10 mins.

Remove and serve hot with chocolate sauce. Drizzle some honey on top for extra sweetness.

Notes:

You could add pineapple chunks similarly.
Maybe some crushed peanuts?
And maybe some vanilla ice cream on the side :) 

Foxtail Millet with Jaggery

I thought a while whether i could call the recipe a pongal. But it was not really a pongal. So i said i would just go with Foxtail Millet and jaggery, cause that is all this simple dish needs.

A friend got a small packet of foxtail millet for me from an organic food store. Unfortunately, it had the husk intact and i could not really make much out of it. I spotted the millets at an organic store in Mysore later and picked a packet up at once. When i got back home to proudly show the mother a new millet discovery, she stumped me by saying that it is called Korai/ korra biyyam and used to be used much in the olden days.
After doing some research, i saw that it was cooked a lot like rava or broken wheat. I was sure that i wanted to make a sweet dish out of it, cause it has the kind of mild sweetness that ragi has.
The recipe is really simple, needs minimum ingredients and gets done super easy.

Preparation Time  10 Mins
Cooking Time       20 Mins

Ingredients

Foxtail Millet/ Korra Biyyam     1/2 cup
Ghee                                        1 1/2 tbsp
Grated Jaggery                         1/4th cup, increase as per taste.
Dry coconut/ kopra                  1/4 cup, chopped into tooth size bits

Method:

I just added the millet into the rice cooker and poured twice the amount of water and allowed it to cook.
Once done, transfer into a microwave safe bowl, add to it the jaggery shavings and a tbsp of ghee.

Microwave on high for two mins. That is about how long it takes for the jaggery to melt. Mix well so that the liquid jaggery comes together well with the millet and also lends it its color. Fry the dry coconut in the remaining ghee and add it to the mixture.

It makes for a good 11 o clock snack or a light after meal snack when you crave for "something sweet". Pack it in a dabba and carry it as a sureshot solution for that odd timing hunger pang.

I thought i could also try a slightly richer version with some more ghee, cardamom and nuts and make it as a prasadam for any festival. Light, flavorful, easy to make, healthy and a welcome change from the regular grains!

Strawberry Sauce | A quickie

If you go grocery shopping to the supermarket, you can't miss the strawberries these days. Not just the big stores, even the local fruit vendors are selling the ubiquitous boxes of the pretty red fruits. But it always so happens to me that if the fruit is sweet, a couple of them in the box turn out to be bad. Sometimes it so happens that the fruits look nice and plump but are sour on the inside.

When they are sweet, i can't think of a better way to eat them than by dipping them in chocolate sauce. Heaven is right there. When i was faced with the prospect of finishing some not-so-sweet strawberries lest they went bad, i thought of turning it into a sauce.
To me, any sauce or chutney should be a good balance of uppu-puLi-kaaram-inippu (salt, sourness, heat and sweet, in that order ). So this simple sauce had the sugar for the sweetness, pepper lending heat, ginger adding a tang and the strawberry itself a little sour.
No measurements actually. Just take a ramekin. Go chop chop and add the strawberries upto 3/4th the cup. Add a spoonful of sugar or more according to your preference, some salt and pepper to taste, dry ginger powder and maybe some unsalted butter on top. Well, all you need to do now is to microwave this for a minute and a half.
Ta-da! Your sauce is ready!

You could make it overtly sweet, like a jam. Or keep it light and make it a nice mix of different fresh flavors. Maybe even try it with some mint. Serve it for breakfast with toasted bread or pancakes.

Happy Pongal!

It is great when you wake up on a Monday morning and it happens to be a holiday! The cherry on the cake is that the holiday is for Pongal- a festival to celebrate the abundance of food and good health at home.
Yours truly did not move one finger for anything but taking pictures. All the cooking was done by Amma, that too in record time!

Before i knew it, there was a spread of venn pongal ( khara pongal) , shakkarai pongal, sambar and avial for the usual Pongal brunch after the pooja. Was planning to post the recipe. But you can find it here. The only difference being, Amma adds a pinch of pepper powder instead of the salt and lots of coconut shavings get fried in ghee, along with the dry fruits and add a great texture to the Pongal!
So here is wishing all of you lots of prosperity at home and to churning out many more lovely delicacies in the kitchen the year ahead. Iniya Pongal Nalvaazhtukkal!

|| A New Beginning ||

Of all the things in the world, the one constant is that things will change. Change is challenging and it is fun! I look back now to what i used to cook when i started off in the kitchen, the clothes i bought and my tastes when it came to home decor and i know that it has changed and matured over the years. But despite all the changes happening, one thing remains constant -my unending love for food, crafts and textiles. Hence the thought of cataloging it in this blog. A little bit of sugar and a lot of spice and a journal of all things pretty and nice.

And what better than a sweet during the festive season as the first post? I started off with the idea of making a Lauki ka halwa. Turned out there was not enough lauki to make a substantial amount. So i decided to add carrots to it. While grating the carrots, my eyes fell on the pumpkin, waiting to be used. And thus i set out to make the Tiranga Halwa 

Preparation time - 15 mins

Cooking time      - 30 mins

You would need

Carrots, Pumpkin and Bottle gourd    2 cups in all, grated well

Milk                                                  1 cup

Sugar                                                3/4th cup

Green cardamom                               2 pods, powdered

Ghee                                                 5 tbs

Cashew or almonds                           a handful, finely slivered

In a thick bottomed pan, add in 1 table spoon of ghee and fry the dry fruits until it changes color. Remove and set aside.

Add the remaining ghee to the same pan and add in the vegetables one by one. Pumpkin goes in first cause it takes the longest to cook. After sauteing for about 5 mins, add the carrots and let it cook. Finally, dunk in the grated lauki, when the other two vegetables appear half done. 

Continue frying till the vegetables soak in all the ghee and lose all their water. Now add in the milk, cover and cook for 10 mins on low heat. The vegetables should be fully cooked in that time. Remove the cover, add the sugar and the elaichi powder and give it a nice stir. On medium heat, without the cover, work on the halwa by constantly stirring it, until all the moisture is soaked up and the ghee starts separating on the sides. Switch off the flame and top it with the fried nuts. Allow it to cool and serve as it is or with a scoop of ice cream.

Happy Diwali!