Showing posts with label Indian Sweets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indian Sweets. Show all posts
Monday, 9 November 2015
About a year ago, I was at Adz's school, talking about Diwali to the Grade One class. I talked a bit about India, and how we celebrated many festivals among all the faiths that make up this incredibly diverse and secular country. When I was talking about Diwali, the celebration of light in honour of the Lord Rama's return to his home town, one little voice piped up - "India sounds awesome, Adz's mom. Can you please take me there?"
India has a tradition of celebrating festivals with the kind of joie de vivre that is almost over the top. When Adz and I visited about a year and half ago, Christmas was being celebrated. Adz, who was used to the classy, restrained lights of Canada, was overwhelmed at the colours, music and lights that Indians celebrated festivals with, and to me, it reminded me of India at it's very best.
Diwali, in particular, has a special significance in India, and is one of the biggest festivals in the country. When I was talking about Diwali to the kids, I found this really cute video online, that they loved.
Monday, 9 February 2015
A lot of the cuisine I've grown up with is an amalgamation of this cultural absorption. Having grown up on the edge of Portuguese ruled Goa and with a strong 'Western' influence on food, a lot of what we ate was the Indianised version of Portuguese, British or French cuisine. Vindalho, for example or jhalfrezi.
There were, and are, some dishes though that were a unique combination of the person making them, and traditional European classics. This nutmeg flan - a specialty of my mom's - is one of them. When I first decided to make it myself, I remember asking my mom where she got the recipe. She shrugged and said, nowhere. It was one of those recipes which she probably ate at a friends' place, and then recreated it at home, using her own memories of the dish.
This is an interesting aspect of cooking, for me. I grew up with instinctive cooking, yet over the years I have learned to follow recipes and techniques to come up with perfect dishes. Not to say that my cooking isn't good, but I must admit that sometimes I miss the instinctiveness of food, where you grab a glance inside the refrigerator and make a dish based on what you find there. The way my mom usually cooks. The best part about this kind of cooking is the modifications that individual cooks make to their own cooking. My Aunt Helen, for example, uses milk soaked bread in this same pudding - mimicking a classic bread and butter pudding, whereas my mum keeps it very simple with just milk, eggs, sugar and nutmeg, which is more reminiscent of a Mexican or a Vietnamese style of flan.
For me, this dish is the essence of my childhood. Despite its simplicity, Mum only made this for special occasions - or when she had some time off school.
Saturday, 12 July 2014
As you know, I also write and develop
recipes over at The Kitchn. I thought I'd share what I've been up to in
the last few months. These spiced cucumber sticks are an all time favourite street food in India. They are easy to put together, and are a healthy snack, with their hints of salty, tangy, spicy chaat masala. Make your own chaat masala or use store bought. Either way, you'll love them.
Recipe: Spiced Cucumber Sticks with Chaat Masala
Recipe: Chaat Masala
Avocado lassi - another all time favourite in our house. I grew up with avocado trees in my front garden, and I still blanch every time I pay a buck a fruit. Read all about my tropical childhood and check out this recipe that my mom used to make for us after school.
Recipe: Avocado Lassi
My first recipe for The Kitchn was this classic Rajmah
Chawal, or Red Kidney Bean Curry with Saffron Rice. This rustic dish is
found everywhere in India, and its a filling, hearty dish, that is
beloved everywhere. Its a staple in our household, as its easy to put together and also goes well with cous cous, bulgur wheat or plain rice.
Recipe: Rajmah Chawal
Enjoy!
Friday, 7 March 2014
There are a few things I miss about India. Having been back for close to four weeks now, Adz and I are slowly adjusting back to normal life... well, if normal life means dealing with early morning school runs, -42 C, layers and layers of clothes and frozen nose hair (yes, really!) February and March aren't usually this bad in Edmonton, but this year seems unusually harsh. Or maybe its just that we haven't managed to get used to the cold after the balmy tropical breezes of India.
So yes, missing the warmth is probably top of the list. And this...
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
What is more refreshing than a cup of chai on a hot day? Why, chai ice cream, of course!
This has got to be simply, my most favourite ice cream of all time, and let's just say, when it comes to ice creams I know what I am talking about. I love the way the spices infuse into the strong tea, and create, well, the only way to describe it is 'warmth'... and yes, I know I am talking about an ice cream here. Anyway, coming back to my point, I love the way the spices create a warmth to this ice cream, and give it a uniquely Indian taste. I can't think of a better dessert to finish off an Indian meal than this delightful ice cream.
Sunday, 22 April 2012
Gulab jamuns (translated very roughly as 'rose-fruits') may have got their name from the fact that they are jamun (an Indian fruit) shaped, round, and usually soaked in a rosewater scented syrup. Essentially, deep fried balls made of milk powder, flour, butter and cream or milk, and then soaked in sugar syrup. They sound terrible when you put it like that, but oh!! they are so decadent, and very reminiscent of a rum baba in many ways.
These sweets were a rare treat for us when we were growing up. I am not sure why, but am guessing that the amount of work involved put my mum off a lot of the time. Its not a very hard recipe, but it does take a bit of patience and time. So my earliest memories of this sweet are associated with hot Saturday afternoons at home. My mum didn't work on Saturdays, but we had school in the mornings. We would get back, have lunch, then my mum would chase us into bed for a siesta. Of course, we being kids, protested very vocally at this intrusion into our playing time, but looking back I see why mum did this. It was her 'quiet time' where she could putter around the house, maybe sew a bit, garden, try out a new dish... and those new dishes were what we looked forward to the most. Ocasionally one of her friends or colleagues would join her, and they would together whisk up some magic in our teeny kitchen.
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Growing up, dessert wasn't something we ate very often. In fact, our eating habits in India were rather weird, particularly with my mum being a working woman.
We would always have a filling and hot breakfast, something I have no idea how my mum actually managed. She used to wake up at 5 AM so we could have hot breakfasts... I realise now how lucky we were! Then mum would cook lunch for whoever was at home, make up our lunchboxes and rush out to her school, where she worked as a teacher. Everything was sorted by 8.15 AM, cause she had an hour commute to get to work. And if you've ever commuted in India, you will know exactly how stressful it is with the heat and dust, and crowds all pressing in. My mum is a supermum, and now that I am a mum myself, I find myself appreciating her more and more every passing day!
Getting back to the point, we would end up eating lunch at school, and then have a heavy tea at about half past four when we got home. Tea usually meant snacks as well, and so we would be well filled up for when mum got home at about five. Dinner was around eight, and we never really had a formal 'sit-down-round-the-table' dinner. We'd get a shout when it was ready, and we went and served ourselves, got yelled at for not taking enough vegetables... grumbled a bit about 'fish again...? I hate fish... moan, mutter'... and usually ate in the front of the TV after a little fight with dad about what we were going to watch (dad usually won, unless there was something mum wanted to watch, in which case, mum won!)
So essentially 'family dinners' as we know it here weren't a big part of my life, growing up. Neither were desserts. The only time we got to eat sweets was usually at tea time when we would grab something from the local bakeries. Or when we had relatives over, in which case we would all pile in and head to the local (hugely famous) ice cream parlour and stuff our faces.
Friday, 7 October 2011
OK, I am going to start off this post with a request for a favour from all of you. If you haven't voted, please could you vote for me in the Babble list of Top 100 Mom Food Bloggers? I would really appreciate it, as I am kind of getting used to my top 5 status, and I don't want to lose it :-) You don't need to register, just click on this link and click 'I like this' beside my name. I am currently at 4, 5 or 6 by popularity, depending on if anyone has passed me!
Its been a good few days for me in many ways. Last week this blog was listed in Channel 4 Food's Best Family Food Blogs. I don't have to tell you how delighted I am, and the grin hasn't slipped off my face yet. I also found out later in the week that my first ever cookery class with Kathryn Joel from Get Cooking sold out. Wow! Plus of course I spent a beautiful day out with my family on Friday. We went to a free concert, then for a special lunch. All in all, a really lovely week. And it only seemed perfect to end it with this delicious Indian dessert!
Now, I have never been a 'planner'. While, I am fairly organised, I don't necessarily have an idea of what I am going to cook or make, usually going with what I feel like having that particular day. We normally eat very simply in the house. Good, healthy and easy homecooked food, Indian or otherwise. We don't even have strict mealtimes (except when the in-laws visit, of course) but I make sure we all get a balanced meal, or sometimes even two, depending on how early I've woken up :-)
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Ah... Bebinca. Now you can call it Bebinca, Bibique or Bibik, whatever you will, but believe you me, once you taste this dessert, I am fraid you are sold on it for life. That's what happened to me anyway.
Bebinca is a quintessential layered cake from Goa, and rightly famous, seeing as the amount of work that goes into it and the amazing taste that results. I have never really even attempted to make it at home previously. First off, I never really had the time, and second, the work always put me off. But on the other hand, its not like my friendly neighbourhood grocer sells bebinca here in Edmonton, so if I wanted it, I had to make it myself. So after a long long time of browsing the internet, calling my dear mum and aunties, checking out my favourite Goan cookbook, I finally came up with a recipe. I found that there were very few recipes for Bebinca online, but to be honest, now that I have made it, I can understand why buying it is a much much much more easier option.
Thursday, 7 April 2011
First my news. I have found out that a lovely person (thank you!) has nominated my blog for Babble's Top 100 Food Mom Blogs for 2011 in the 'Your Favourites' section.. To say I am super excited would be a mild understatement. Eeeeeeeeeeee!!!! I am excited!! Are you? Probably not :-) But I am! And I have a favour to ask of you. If you like my blog and enjoy my recipes, please could you go over to Babble and say you like me? All you have to do is click on the 'I like this' button beside my name. I am listed as Michelle Peters-Jones, and right now I am on Page 1 by popularity and Page 4, alphabetically. So, thanks in advance for your support and I really appreciate it! Here's an additonal link, if you missed the first one. You can also nominate any other favourite mom blog there too.
And now that I have got the excitement out of the way, back to the post. For this month's Random Recipe Challenge, Dom over at Belleau Kitchen asked us to make a recipe from our very first cookbooks. Well, turns out I remember my first every cookbook rather well. So well, that I asked my mum to see if she could find a copy for me to own, and lovely mom that she is, she came up trumps.
Monday, 4 April 2011
I don't make Indian desserts very often, as I tend to find them quite rich and very sweet. However, after buying my semolina vermicelli, I was quite tempted to make this version of kheer or milk pudding. Normally kheer is made with pudding rice, as its the Indian version of the British rice pudding. But the vermicelli version is very popular in India too.
Monday, 28 March 2011
Mangoes are so ubiquitous in India, that I feel I really didn't appreciate them when I should have. Now that I no longer get fresh, sweet mangoes off the trees, I crave them so much.
I love mangoes. I love them when they're tart and green, and when they've ripened to a soft, creamy yellow. My maternal grandparents used to live in a village an hour or so outside Mangalore, and their garden had a large mango tree. My mum still remembers the taste of those mangoes, as she reminisces about eating them straight off the tree with her brothers and sisters.
Saturday, 12 February 2011
OK, first off, I have a confession to make. The first time I tasted this delectable, all Indian dessert was in Liverpool (ducks).
No defence, really, it just wasn't a dessert that crossed our path in India. Partly because of my mum's reluctance to spend hours stirring a pot of milk to get it to thicken and partly because it was just not popular in a Mangalore dominated by the presence of arguably, the country's best ice cream parlour (Ideal's)
So the first time I had a kulfi was in the Maharaja (which, incidentally, does some of the best South Indian food I've tasted in England) in Liverpool. It made enough of an impression, that it stuck in my mind and when I wanted a quintessentially Indian dessert, I turned to it. As with the Dal Maharani and Prawn Biriyani, this was part of our Superbowl party menu. It was also green in colour, so worked with the fact that Kay wanted the Green Bay Packers to win (they did and I am claiming it was because I served a green dessert).
I looked for several recipes, but nothing that I found online or in my books really inspired me. For one, the majority had you stirring milk until it thickened, and while I am dedicated to my cooking, I am not that dedicated. So I took elements from a few different sources and came up with a version, that I thought would work well.
It did! It was creamy and delicious with an intense pistachio flavour that was enhanced, and not overpowered, by rosewater and cardamom. I was worried that I may have to churn it to get a creamy texture, as traditionally kulfis are not churned. But I didn't have to worry, as the kulfi was so creamy, it literally just melted in the mouth. The chopped pistachios added a lot to the texture, and overall this was a real success and a dessert that I will definitely be making very often now.
Recipe:
(Printable Recipe)
For the pistachio paste:
1 cup pistachios
2 tbsp rosewater
¾ cup whole milk
2 tbsp light honey or sugar
Making the rest of the kulfi:
300 ml sweetened condensed milk
2 cups whole milk
1 cup half and half or single cream
1 tbsp cornstarch
4 pods cardamom, seeds taken out and crushed
1 – 2 tbsp sugar
Handful pistachios, chopped, for the garnish
Method:
Using a powerful blender, grind the pistachios, rosewater, milk and honey or sugar to a very smooth paste. Put into the fridge.
To make the kulfi, take 4 tbsp milk out of the 2 cups milk, and stir in the cornstarch, whisking to a smooth paste, adding a little more milk, if necessary.
Scrape the condensed milk into a deep pan, and whisk in the milk, cornstarch mixture, half and half, crushed cardamom seeds and the sugar. Mix well, taste, and add a little more sugar if you want it sweeter. Remember, the condensed milk is already quite sweet.
Over a medium heat, bring this mixture to the boil. Lower the heat a little, and cook, stirring often for roughly 15 – 25 minutes, until the mixture is fairly thick and coats the back of a spoon. It should have reduced by a third too.
Take off the heat and refrigerate until cold.
Once the milk mixture is completely cold, take it out and whisk in the pistachio paste, mixing well.
Pour into kulfi moulds or ramekins or a freezer safe container and freeze overnight or until firm.
If you are freezing in ramekins, put them in a bowl of hot water to loosen the edges a bit, before unmoulding.
Serve with the chopped pistachios sprinkled over, as garnish.
Note: For mango kulfi, replace the pistachio paste with 1½ cups mango pulp and 1 tbsp rosewater.
Saturday, 27 March 2010
I love mangoes, but find that fresh ones here are brutally expensive, plus they have not got the real mangoey flavour that I am used to. So I decided to use tinned alphonso mango puree that is available at most Indian grocers. I found mine at the Indian House of Spices in Edmonton (there's a story about how I found the store, but more on that in a later post) and bought two big tins. Most of these tins will already have been sweetened and will have citric acid, so you don't need to use lemon juice or very much sugar. I tend to use pineapple juice to give the yoghurt a tropical flavour (as if the mangoes were'nt enough!). This would taste amazing with fresh mango puree though, so if you happen to have some ripe mangoes around, I do suggest you try using those instead. The rosewater and powdered cardamom give the yoghurt a lovely fragrant aroma, along with a slight spiciness, which I like.
I don't have an icecream maker, so the method I use is detailed below. The texture of the dessert is almost sorbet like, but creamier. I will put up more pics tomorrow, as I am serving this up as a dessert for a dinner party. The pic today is the batch I made to test the recipe out, and it got the thumbs up from Kay and Aditi (who scoffed a whole bowl up and wanted more!)
This would work with a lot of other fruits as well as with flavours like chai, which is my next project.
Recipe:
2 cups pureed mango (use tinned for an easy out-of-season treat) 500 ml
1 cup greek style yoghurt or plain natural yoghurt - 250 ml
1 tsp rosewater
2 tbsp orange or pineapple juice
1 cardamom pod, seeds removed and crushed to a fine powder (optional)
4 tsp white caster sugar
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp roughly chopped unsalted pistachios (opt)
Mint leaves to garnish
Method:
Hang the yoghurt up at least 2 hours in a muslin or thin cotton cloth, if you are able (and don’t have a curious cat!), as it drains the water out of the yoghurt and makes for a much creamier dessert. To hang, spread the cloth out into a bowl, put the yoghurt into the middle and bring together the edges of the cloth. Wrap a rubber band around the fold and tie the cloth over a sink or somewhere, with a bowl under it to catch the drained water.
Mix together the mango puree, rosewater, orange/ pineapple juice, sugar and crushed cardamom seeds.
Whisk the yoghurt into the mango mixture until it’s all well mixed together and creamy.
As I don’t have an icecream maker (are you reading this, husband?) I used the ‘take-out and beat every hour for four hours’ method. Basically, put the yoghurt into a freezable bowl, freeze for an hour, take out and whisk well, put back, freeze another hour, take out and whisk well... you get it! At the fourth whisk, swirl in the honey, don’t over mix, you want streaks of it through the dessert.
After the fourth hour, leave to freeze overnight or for six hours at least. Take out and rest for 10 minutes or so before serving. Serve with the chopped pistachios and mint leaves as garnish.
Enjoy!
Thursday, 19 February 2009
The grating of the carrots does take a long time (a food processor with a grater arrangement helps immensely, or get the kids to do it) and this dish generally takes a long time to make. However, it does freeze well, and will keep in the fridge as well. The other option is to roll out little balls of the halwa and roll them in edible silver/ gold leaf. They make a nice gift to someone with a sweet tooth.
The halwa does not need to be made super sweet, taste the milk and carrot mixture after adding some sugar, and keep adding more till it gets to the sweetness you like.
Recipe:
500g grated carrots
1 litre milk
12 green cardamom pods
Unsalted pistachio nuts (shelled)
About 25g raisins (optional)
500g sugar (or to taste)
3 tablespoons ghee
Edible silver leaf (optional)
About 75 ml whipping cream
2 generous pinches of saffron
Method:
Break open 8 cardamom pods and slide out the seeds. In a dry hot pan, toast the seeds for 1 minute until you get a lovely aroma. Crush lightly with a pestle and mortar.
In a shallow open saucepan, heat the ghee gently, add the crushed cardamom seeds and stir.
Add the grated carrots and fry uncovered for 5 min. Reduce the heat, pour in the milk, add the raisins, bring it to the boil, reduce heat again and cook the mixture for an hour or so, stirring once in a while to stop the mixture from sticking.
Add sugar, a little at a time and cook the mixture till it thickens and becomes sticky.
Chop the pistachio nuts coarsely.
Heat the cream with the remaining cardamom pods (split them but don't take out the seeds) and the saffron. Once it boils, take it off the heat and leave aside for as long as you wish to infuse.
Before serving, strain to remove the cardamom, whip very lightly (should be thick, but still pourable) and add a hint of saffron to decorate.
To serve, put some halwa into a small greased ramekin, pressing it down till the halwa is packed in. Overturn the ramekin on the serving plate, scatter over the pistachio nuts, paint with the silver leaf and serve with the cold cream on the side. The halwa can be served warm or cold. I served it warm with cold cream.
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