Boondi Laddoo

It is often prepared on festivals or for household events such as weddings and births or given as a Prasad at Hindu temples. The laddu or laddoo can be made from gram flour (besan), semolina (rava), wheat flakes, and many other flours. It is also a common nickname for sweet and lovely people. After making this, this is what I felt: “Making ladoo is not as hard as I thought”. 

Ingredients:

For boondi:

Gram flour                    3 cups

Water                           2 cups

Ghee                            1 Tbsp

Oil/ghee                       for deep frying

Cashew nuts                 ½ Cup, roasted in ghee
a fine-holed shallow strainer spoon

For syrup:

Sugar                           2 ½ cups
Water                           1 ½ cups

Cardamom powder       1 tsp
Milk                             2 tbsp

Saffron/ Kesari colour   1 pinch (optional)
Preparation:
For syrup:

Put sugar and water in a vessel and boil till single thread consistency. Add cardamom powder and mix. Remove from heat and keep aside.

For boondi:

Mix flour and water to a smooth batter.

Heat oil/ghee in a heavy frying pan.

Hold strainer on top with one hand. With the other pour some batter all over the holes. Tap gently till all batter has fallen into hot oil. Fry and remove when light golden and set aside. Care must be taken that the boondi should be cooked well but not crispy. Repeat the same for the remaining batter.

Warm the 2 Tbsp of milk and add saffron/ food colour and add to the syrup. Mix in the boondi and fried cashew nuts in the syrup.

Drain any excess syrup. Spread in a large plate and Cover and keep for 10 minutes so that the boondi absorbs the syrup. Shape into laddoos with moist palms. Cool and keep open to dry and store in containers.

Pumpkin Halwa

This is what I made for this Diwali. Diwali is the Indian festival of lights celebrated by wearing new clothes, lighting fire crackers and exchanging sweets back home. Usually my mom prepares this sweet with Ash gourd. But since I didn’t find it here, I wanted to try with the yellow pumpkin which is readily available during this time of the year and searched in the internet if it is allowed to use it to make this dish . To my surprise, it tasted equally great and love the colour of the dish. Traditional halwa uses khoa or khoya or mawa (milk that is cooked down so most the moisture is evaporated). This adds texture and richness to halwa. I used sweetened condensed milk to the recipe to thicken the halwa. Instead, you can also cook the grated pumpkin in milk and then fry in ghee till we get the required consistency.

Ingredients:

Pumpkin – 1 kg

Ghee- ½ cup

Sugar – 1 cup

Sweetened condensed milk – 50 ml

Cashew nuts – ¼ cup

Raisins – 2 Tbsp

Cardamom Powder – 1 tsp

Method:

·       Cut, deseed, peel and grate the pumpkin.

·       In a heavy bottom pan, add about 2 tbsp of ghee and fry the cashew nuts and raisins till golden brown and keep aside.

·      Add the remaining ghee to the pan and fry the grated pumpkin on medium heat till all the moisture is gone and the ghee oozes out.

·      Stir in the condensed milk and sugar, milk well and cook on low heat by constantly stirring (so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom and get burnt) till the milk is totally absorbed in and the ghee oozes out of the halwa.

·       Stir in the cardamom powder, mix well and remove from heat.

·       Garnish with fried cashews and raisins.

·       Serve hot or cold. It tastes great in either ways. It can also be refrigerated in a closed container for about a week and can be reheated before serving.

Kobbari/ Coconut Laddu

Ingredients:

Grated Coconut - 3 cups

Grated Jaggery - 1 ½ cups

Ground elaichi powder -  ½  tsp

Ghee – 5-6 tbsp

Cashew nuts: ¼ cup

Preparation:

In a pan, add 2 tbsp of ghee and fry the cashew nuts till golden brown and keep aside.

In a heavy bottomed vessel, add the remaining ghee, grated jaggery and grated coconut and cook on a medium heat stirring continuously.

As it gets heated up, jiggery starts melting. Stir continuously and make sure that the mixture does not stick to the bottom of the vessel.

After sometime, the mixure becomes thick and comes together. At this point, stir in the elaichi powder and fried cashewnuts. Mix well  and remove the mixture from heat and let it cool.

When it is still warm, grease hands with ghee and make into small balls. Cool the laddus to room temperature and store in a dry, closed container. The shelf life of these laddus is about two weeks at room temperature.

Sunnundalu/ Urid dal Laddoo

Sunnundalu is a traditional Andhra sweet made from Urid dal, sugar and ghee. It is a simple recipe with simple ingredients and tastes heavenly. This is my brother’s favorite sweet and my mom prepares every other week for him. Even, Siva loves these too and now I have a reason to prepare them for him. Here we go with the recipe....

Ingredients:

Urid dal – 2 cups

Sugar – 1 cup

Ghee – ¾ cup

Method:

In a pan, roast the urid dal till golden brown on a low heat, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and keep aside and let it cool to room temperature.

In a food processor/mixer, grind the roasted urid dal and sugar separately  to a smooth powder  and keep aside.

Melt the ghee and cool to room temperature.

Mix in the urid dal and sugar powder thoroughly and slowly add in the melted ghee, mix and make into round laddoos..

Pistachio Custard

I am here with the very  first desert recipe in my blog. As I am really not a sweet-loving person, I rarely prepare them. But this particular recipe changed my inclination towards deserts.  I tasted it for the first time at my friend, Lakshmi’s place and became a fan of it from that very moment.  Immediately, I took the recipe from her and made very few modifications to it. It’s really a wonderful, tasty, yet simple recipe. I am very happy to share it with you.

Ingredients:               

Pistachios - 1 cup shelled

Evaporated milk - ½ litre

Sugar - ¾ cup

Custard powder – 2 Tbsp

Method:

Crush the pistachios in a mortar or a food processor to a coarse powder.

Mix the milk, sugar in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring it to boil. Now add the pistachios and bring to a light boil

Mix the custard powder with about 4 to 5 tbsp of cold milk to make it a smooth paste.

Now add this to the boiling milk and stir continuously. After adding the custard to the boiling milk, it starts to become thick and creamy.

Allow it to simmer for 5-10 minutes, then remove from the heat and chill in a refrigerator for about 2 hours and serve.

Kobbari Boorelu/ Kobbari vadalu

First of all I wish you all a Very Happy Sankranthi. Makar Sankranti is one of the most auspicious occasions for the Hindus, and is celebrated in almost all parts of the country in myriad cultural forms, with great devotion, fervour & gaiety. The day is known by various names and a variety of traditions are witnessed as one explores the festival in different states. Call it Lohri, Pongal or Sankranti, the festival conveys the same message -- the bond of brotherhood and the spirit of oneness should prevail despite all odds. 

It is a harvest festival. Makar Sankranti is perhaps the only Indian festival whose date always falls on the same day every year i.e. the 14th of January according to the Solar Calendar.  In south India, the festival is celebrated for four days. The first day is called 'Bhogi', the second day, 'Sankranti', the third day, 'Kanuma' and the fourth day, 'Mukkanuma'. 

Away from home, here we miss all the spirit of Sankranthi, the bonfires, rangolis, traditional dresses and definitely the delicious food. As an attempt to prepare some traditional dishes, I prepared these kobbari boorelu for the first time in my life and wanted to share this recipe with you.

Ingredients :

Rice – ½ kg

Jaggery – ½ kg

Water – ½ cup

Cardamon powder – ¼ tbsp

Grated coconut – 1 cup

Oil – for frying

Preparation:

• Wash and soak the rice for about 4 hours and drain the water and spread it on a towel and let it dry for about an hour, till the moisture evaporates.
• Now in a grinder, powder the rice till smooth powder. It is better to sieve it with a sieve to have a smooth powder.  The resultant flour is little moist. It is very important that the flour is moist and to have it so, press the flour tightly with hand so that it will not become dry.
• Now in a thick bottomed vessel, heat the water and add the powdered jaggery and let it cook till you can make a ball out of this. This you can find out by putting a drop of the syrup in a small pool of water, you should be able to make a small round.
• Add the grated coconut and cardamom powder to the syrup and mix well and let it cook for 5 to 7 minutes.
• Now add the rice flour to this and stir to avoid lumps. When it starts thickening, you can stop adding the flour and remove it from the flame. If you add too much of flour, the boorelu would be really hard.
• Now cool the mixture to room temperature. Now heat oil in a pan to fry the boorelu.
• To make the boorelu, smear some ghee on your hand, take some mix and make it a round ball.
• Flatten the ball on a greased plastic foil to make a small roti and drop it in the hot oil and fry on both the sides till golden brown.
• Now remove it from oil and place it on a paper towel to absorb the extra oil.
• Store them in a tight container after complete cooling. Their shelf life is about one month.