Wheat Halwa

This is a typical Diwali treat at my place and my mom- in- law's signature dish. Just tried this out today. I like this home made version better than store bought ones. Its incredibly tasty and a melt in your mouth treat. It requires a bit of work but worth the effort. So do check out the recipe.

Ingredients

Samba Wheat grains -1 glass( 250 gms approximately)

Sugar-2 1/4 cup ( u can increase if you want it sweeter)

Cardamom pods -10 which were powdered

Cashews-A handful broken

Ghee-10 tablespoons(150 ml approximately)

Soak wheat grains overnight. I added 3 glasses of water to immerse the wheat grains.

Put the wheat grains in a mixer and grind . To extract the milk grind the wheat with one glass of water and extract the milk. The first extract will be thick, the last extract will be watery. I did this procedure thrice. Discard the glutinous mass of wheat. Use a sieve to filter the milk.

The filtered wheat milk will look like this.  If you keep this aside, the milk will remain at the bottom and the water will remain on top. I did not discard the water because the wheat milk will coagulate fast and might get charred if not careful.

Now prepare the sugar syrup. Take sugar in a pan add 3/4 cup of water to the sugar. Start stirring it. Take a little bit of milk and add it to the sugar syrup to remove the scum. You can see the scum in the picture above.

Stir this mixture till it attains a single string consistency. You can check the consistency with your finger.

 The wheat milk has been added to the sugar syrup. Stir this well till it forms a mass. 

Take a little bit of color and add this to the mixture. After this you will have to add cardamom and cashew nuts. You have to keep stirring the mixture well and cannot leave it unattended. You have to keep adding ghee, as you are stirring in stages as it forms a mass.

You can see the I have added the cardamom powder,cashew nuts and ghee and the mixture is forming into mass. The main difficulty in making this sweet is stirring. I had to stir this for 45 minutes.Its better to stir this on a low flame to prevent it from getting charred. This is important if you want to make pieces.

Please check this consistency,  the whole mixture has formed a ball.

Grease a plate with ghee. Put the whole mixture on to a plate. Let it cool. Cut into desired shapes.

Cut into desired shapes. I cut them up into a diamond shape. This was not cloyingly sweet but just right. If you like it sweeter please add more sugar. I got 40 pieces for one glass of wheat.

Sending this to Diwali Special Sweets & Savories 

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Global Food Festival by Kalyani

ICC-Suruttai Poli

I have been wanting to join ICC for a long time now.I spent half the time just thinking about it.Finally I decided to join the group.This is my first entry to the event.And what a sweet way to start.Srivalli challenged us with a recipe called Suruttai Poli suggested by Nithya's mom.This reminded me of Karjikai a sweet preparation in Karnataka.I had lots of queries regarding this recipe.Finally I told myself I will have my answers to all  the queries only if i give it a go.And so I did.

Ingredients for stuffing

1 cup -roasted gram

1 cup sugar

Cardamom-1 tsp

Grated coconut-1 tbsp
Cashew Nuts-20

Ingredients for poori

1 cup-Maida Flour

A pinch of salt

Water for kneading

Oil-for frying

Method

Put in a cup of Maida flour and knead with required amount of water to make a dough.Set it aside for 30 minutes.Powder sugar and roasted gram till smooth.I also added whole cardamoms to this flour.The aroma was so heavenly.Even the ants lined up on the table!Put in the ghee and fry cashew till light brown,add in the grated coconut and fry.Put this mixture into the sugar and roasted gram flour and mix well.Keep aside.Keep some kitchen towels ready,roll out thin pooris with a 10cm diameter and place it on them for ten minutes.Take a pan,pour in the oil,when ready fry these discs,this is the tricky part,if the pooris are over cooked they will puff up and become brittle.They should be put in the pan and taken out in jiffy when just done and largely white in colour.Put in on top of the kitchen towel,so that the excess oil gets drained.Add the filling in the corner of the poori and roll.The pooris have to be flexible to be able to roll. Put in a plate with the smooth side facing up.Enjoy the tasty poli when your hunger pang strikes.

Making of Mysore Pak.My mom in her own words.

Melt in the mouth barfi type Mysore Pak

Proportions:
Gram Flour: 1: Sugar 2: Ghee 3 (Aavin or Udhayam)

The importance of using Asli desi Ghee in Mysore Pak

Sorry health conscious people.If you want to get a nice texture of Mysore pak,you can't resist the use of ghee.You have to use ghee in the proportion of 3 cups to 1 of besan and 2 cups of sugar.If you have any health problem no other go, you have to keep away from eating the delicious Mysore Pak.

How this sweet was named

Since this sweet was prepared in the royal kitchen of Mysore Maharaja,this was the name it acquired.

Making of the barfi like Mysore Pak!

1)Heat half cup of ghee and add one cup of besan in the frying pan.(generally iron kadai is preferred).If you don't have one use you can use Calcutta frying pan or any other pan which is thick bottomed.

2) Mix the flour with out any lumps.

3) In the meantime time add 2 cups of sugar, add water to immerse the sugar.Boil till you get a two string consistency.

4) Now add the besan mixture which is mixed with ghee.


5) Keep the fire very low in sim condition.

6) You must keep remaining ghee in another vessel on the stove in a heated condition.

sinful ghee laden in progress mixture

7) Keep stirring the besan sugar mixture,periodically adding the heated ghee side by side.

8) Keep stirring the mixture till you can see the mixture starts leaving the side of the vessel.The ghee will ooze out of the Mysore pak mixture.If you take a pinch of it you can roll it into a small ball.This is the correct stage where you can transfer the contents.

9)Pour the contents into a plate which is smeared with ghee.The plate should be of even surface.

10) Then you can mark the pieces into squares.Once it cools down you can store it in an airtight container.

Tip: 

The end point is very important in making this sweet.You should not leave the place to attend any call.Even if you are a little careless you won't get soft consistency of the Mysore pak.

Best of luck to get smooth barfi type of Mysore pak and enjoy with family and friends.

Seriously my mom's Mysore pak was a big hit with everybody. I really loved this sweet Diwali moment.This is a tried and tested recipe.Please do try this recipe and let me know.My mom got a lot of wows from visiting family and friends.

I'm sharing this with Key Bunch & Emreen and Sugar Bananas

Navratri Weekend

Twin Hayagreevars and Badam Peda

Golu hopping,making sweets and visiting relatives,these were the sights reserved for me this weekend.I visited a home of two sisters on Friday.They live in the same building and even their icons of worship are identical.Check out the twin Hayagreevars in their house! I simply enjoyed looking at the Golu arrangements made in their house.I was reading an article in hindu comparing Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Golu .What an interesting comparison.The first three steps represent survival.The middle three represent comfort.And the last three to the spiritual plane or self -actualization. 

I also tried out a sweet recipe called Badam Peda from Priya's blog(with a helping hand from my husband!).This I made for my husband's cousin Jaykumar. He  is an IIT gold medalist and PHD from MIT.He is such a simple person.He lost his dad while he was very young.And yet he blazed a trail of excellence.He is such a brilliant boy,and all his accomplishments rests very lightly on his shoulders. He is going to be married very shortly and he had come down for a visit from the US.He has made his mother very proud who is also responsible for his success.All the very best to him.

My mom also made some fantastic lunch.Seen above is a picture of the sesame rice she made.It tasted great.

Vilakku poojai and Saraswathi pooja

This is a collage of the Saraswathi pooja celebration at my mom's and MIL's.My mom does a vilakku pooja during Navratri ,I have put that pic in the center of the collage.Lunch was lavish at my MIL's.For dinner we had adai at my moms.I took a bite of the adai before photographing it on Saturday.So this is the way I celebrated my Navratri weekend.Sending this to the Weekend wrap up party 2. 


Also linking this to Tried and Tasted Event, hosted by PJ of Seduce your Tastebuds.Event Originally by Zlamushka,now taken over by Ms.Lakshmi Venkatesh of Kitchen Chronicles

Jackfruit Pancake

Recipe Source:U.B.Rajalakshmi

I made this Udupi delicacy on karthigai day. In our custom we first make an offering of food like sweets to the Gods before we partake it. The food is purified because of this offering.We then consume it as prasad.In a sense its like thanks giving. Udupi is the abode of Lord Sri Krishna. Since he resides there as a child the priests make wonderful sweets as offering to the Lord who partakes it through his eyes. Udupi is also known for its culinary prowess. All the wonderful recipes originated from there. Lord Krishna's abode is also the abode of happiness and good food!!.

Ingredients:

one and a half cup raw rice
15 jack fruit pods(without seeds)
1/2 cup grated coconut
1 cup jaggery powder
Ghee or oil for cooking

Method:
Soak the raw rice for one hour ,drain the water.
Make a batter of rice,jack fruit,coconut and jaggery.
Grind the batter to a fine paste.
Spread the batter on the skillet and cook on both sides
Serve with butter or honey.

Sending this to Sweet tooth Friday