Happy Diwali! And an easy recipe to make your Diwali a bit sweeter

Diwali's coming! Wafts of delicious Diwali treats being whipped up by Ma greet me everyday when I return from work. The roads are lined with sellers of firecrackers, mounds of rangoli colours, shimmering lanterns and endless diyas (earthen lamps).

One of the goodies my Mom has recently started making for special occasions is the crowd favourite - kaju barfi. This sweet sensation is soft and rich with cashewnuts and other delights. And what is more delightful is that the recipe is so easy! Few ingredients, simple steps and voila - a delicious sweet is ready for you (or your guests, if you're feeling particularly generous!) to swoon over.

The recipe is my Aunt's - thanks, S Kaku!

S Kaku's Kaju Barfi:

Ingredients:

3 cups ground cashewnuts (coarsely ground, texture that of coarse breadcrumbs)

2 cups sugar

1 cup milk powder (yes!)

1 cup water

A few strands of saffron (kesar), dissolved in 2 teaspoons of warm milk

Silver leaf (varkha) (optional, for garnish)

Method:

Thoroughly mix the cashewnut rubble with the milk powder.

Grease a tray/dish with ghee (unsalted butter for those who dont have ghee)

Make syrup from the sugar and water. If you are the finicky type, you can 'clean' the syrup by adding some milk while it boils and skimming away the impurities that the milk pulls to the surface and then straining the syrup. This ensures that the syrup is crystal-clear. But it is not worth the bother, at least in this recipe.

Boil away on medium heat. The syrup should be thick (A test: When a drop of syrup is dropped into a bowl of cool water it should not dissolve but hold its own)

Now comes the time for some quick action - tip in the dissolved saffron and the cashewnut-and- milk powder mix into the syrup and stir it in briskly, all of this in rapid-fire succession.

Tip out the mass onto the greased tray and spread it out FAST with your palms (its HOT, but cant be helped). Then turn a rolling pin over the whole thing so that you get a smooth, even surface.

Garnish with silver leaf.

Score the tray with criss-crosses, going all the way till the bottom of the tray.
It is crucial that you score/cut the pieces while the nut mass is still warm. You can break up the barfi into individual pieces when it has cooled down, but attempting to cut the barfi after it has cooled down is a lost cause - the pieces will brittly splinter into shards.

So there you go - a simple, straightforward recipe to sweeten this Diwali!

May the festival of lights brighten up our lives. :)

Serendipity - and my tryst with scrambled eggs

Scrambled eggs have always fascinated me - well, at least ever since I figured out that this dish is vastly different than its Indianised version, i.e. bhurji or khagina.

I tried cooking up scrambled eggs several times (too many to count), trying to get the perfect 'pillowy-soft almost-set' eggs. I fiddled around with cooking times, ingredients (cream/milk/cream+milk/cheese and so on), techniques (whisk eggs like mad, add to the pan, add cream and then scramble over high heat/ whisk eggs and milk together, scramble over medium heat/ mix eggs and cream and milk (no whisking!) and scramble over very low heat and so on) but there would always be some thing which would mar the perfection of the pale golden eggs - either they would be too dry or too runny or horrors! - have a perfect just-set texture which would start giving off watery juices as it cooled. :(

And then, a few weeks ago, I chanced upon the best eggs I have ever made - serendipity! What happened was that I had swirled some oil in the pan over medium heat when I got a phone call. Engrossed in conversation, I only came back to earth when I saw that the oil was about to start smoking. To avoid disaster, (and to minimise the washing-up) I cracked open a couple of eggs straight into the pan. Unfortunately they began to set right away due to the high heat, throwing me into panic - I didnt want fried eggs! I tipped in a rather generous splash of milk and stirred like crazy - all the while going on with my phone conversation (the friend at the other end had no clue she was aiding a culinary discovery!)

And what would you say - the result of this dangerous multitasking resulted in the yummiest, most scrumptiously soft scrambled eggs I have ever managed to make. No runny juices, no disappointingly dry scrambles, no large clods of eggs - but perfectly butter-yellow-shot-with-white soft quilt-like eggs.....and, for a wonder I'd got the seasoning perfectly right too. Bliss!

Sometimes, the best things in life happen by chance. :)

Kitchen Experiments : Risotto

Risotto had been a long-standing item in my 'To try' list - ever since I read about it in Vir Sanghvi's delicious book 'Rude Food'. And since I tasted the most divine mushroom risotto at Spaghetti Kitchen (Phoenix Mills, Mumbai) 2 years ago. (Its another thing that the second time I sampled SK's risotto a few month's back, it was nowhere near my first delightful experience!)

Like all classic dishes, this one seemed too simple to be true - but in its simplicity lay the danger of going wrong.In a complex dish with lots of ingredients, its relatively easy to cloak your mistakes - but in a dish which has one primary flavour/ingredient, a mistake is almost impossible to hide.

To add to this, the process of making a risotto seems riddled with pitfalls - there is no clear indication as to how long is the rice to be cooked (al dente is so relative!), at what stage does one safely assume that the stock has been absorbed by the rice - and most exapseratingly - how does one know that the rice looks 'wet and slightly dark because of its own starch' and not 'wet and slightly dark becuase of too much stock'?!!

After the Great Veggie Meatball Debacle, I was wary about trying anyhting new and exotic - but a pressing need to either use up or throw away some white wine (and ditto some fancy imported stock cubes)meant that I calmed my quaking heart and stepped into the kitchen to make risotto.I used some fat and short rice we'd got from the grocers (didnt want to splurge on Arborio/Carnaroli/other expensive imported rice, especially after the GVMD). Basically any rice which becomes sticky when cooked rather than each grain standing separate (like Basmati and other long-grained varieties) will do. Purists might turn their noses at anything less than Arborio, and yes, the quality of the risotto will vary according to the rice used (since the rice is the hero of this dish) but for a first-timer, any short-grained sticky rice type will do.

I also used bare essentials for the rest of the ingredients - I skipped the mushrooms and the chicken/seafood and used whatever white wine I had on hand, just so that I wouldnt feel bad in case the dish flopped.

And as luck would have it - it turned out well! Of course there's room (lots of it!) for improvement, but this was good enough to encourage me to try it again, this time with better ingredients. :)

I used the recipe (its actually more a process than a recipe) given in 'Rude Food' and since its a generic process, I dont have any qualms sharing it with you all here:

1. Make lots of stock - either from scratch (tough!) or use stock cubes/stock concentrate. This is the main flavouring for the risotto, so I would recomed using good quality cubes/concentrate, made entirely of natural ingredients. I used an imported Knorr chicken broth cube. A vegetable stock might be too feeble unless boosted by adding flavoursome mushrooms in the ristto.

2. If you're adding seafood/chicken/mushrooms to the risotto (I didnt) lightly saute them (till half-cooked) in olive oil and keep them aside.

3. Gently fry finely chopped onion and garlic in olive oil or olive oil-and-butter. Add some dried mixed herbs.

4. Add raw, unwashed (yes!) rice straight from the packet(a good fistful/ 3/4ths of a cup per person) and saute with the onion and garlic for about3-4 minutes.

5. Add a splash of white wine (no particular type), enough to just cover the rice in the pan. Wait till the rice has absorbed the wine.

6. Add the hot stock, one ladle at a time and keep stirring the rice till the ladleful of stock is absorbed.

7. Repeat step 6 till the rice is cooked but not mushy. (Wikipedia says about 17 minutes after adding the first ladleful - but that is for those expensive rice varieties) If using mushrooms/chicken/seafood, add it to the rice midway through the cooking process.

8. The final risotto should be sticky, not runny (not like the Maharashtrian mau-bhaat!) with a gooey consistency.

Take it off the flame, add some butter/grated Parmesan and mix through. Serve piping hot.

Random Sampling : Sagar Sweets, Mahim, Mumbai

No, I am not going to get statistical in my posts, 'random sampling' is essentially foodie indulgence which doesnt fall in any clear category (stores/restaurants/home) - the catch-all 'Miscellaneous'. :)

On Sunday, we made a quick stop at Sagar Sweets to buy some mithai for Ganeshotsav. And the way Dad, Mom and I betook ourselves was so indicative of our foodieness - or the lack of it.

Dad - walked straight into the store, bought what was required and stepped out.
Mom- stayed back in the car
Me - totally distracted by the trays (platters, salvers, plates...) of food being set out on folding tables on the pavement outside the store; bugged the poor guy laying it all out with my questions; clicked a few dozen pictures on my phone camera; finally bought a booty of goodies to taste!

The holy month of Ramzaan is on and that pocket of Mahim is predominantly Islamic. Muslims fast through the day during Ramzaan and can eat only during the night. Therefore, in the Muslim pockets of the city, during Ramzaan, come evening, and the streets are lined with stalls serving exotic food, traditional dishes you might not get through the year. Makeshift stalls come up, restaurants set up tables and stalls outside the premises as take-away counters, and crowds throng the streets. The month-long fasting ends with Eid when the celebrations continue through the night.
Sagar Sweets, being a combined bakery-and-sweetshop owned by a Muslim family, had on offer an interesting multitude of dishes being laid out in preparation for the evening. Some of them were instantly recognised, but thanks to my questioning the guy arranging all the stuff on the tables (poor chap was so bashful, I suppose he never had a curious female asking him to explain what all the dishes were!), every offering soon had a handle.


The yellow squares were blocks of bread pudding, freshly baked.



The green porridge-like dish in the silvery tray was doodhi halwa (doodhi/bottlegourd/calabash, is slowly simmered with thickened milk, nuts, sugar to form a comforting, rich mash)

The samosas looked plumciously inviting!



The puff pattices (patties?) looked the deal - layers and layers of flaky puff pastry swaddling a spicy-salty vegetable mash

And the piece de resistance - heaps of shallow earthen bowls containing phirni. (A porridge/pudding made of thickened milk and rice - flavoured with kevda/rose water)




I bought the puff pattice, the bread pudding and of course, the phirni. We did a taste test the next day and the results were:


Puff pattice - the ususal: too-oily, too spicy yet addictive. Nothing spectacular.

Bread pudding : We were a little disconcerted with the sunny yellow colour (though the blistered golden-brown top was reassuring) - we thought it would be too eggy. I do not like custard-based puddings that have an eggy aroma - and it's worse when the eggy scent is tried to be covered up with a stonger flavour like artificial vanilla or cardamom - because then you get 2 distinct smells - egg and the vanilla! But this bread pudding, despite its rich yellow colour had absolutely no whiff of egg. There were eggs in there - the silken smooth set texture couldnt be achieved without them - but no hint of the strong eggy flavour at all, and just a hint of vanilla. The barest hint. Oh, this pudding was divine- velvety smooth and not overly sweet. Score!

Phirni - Oh my goodness. This version of the popular dessert was even better than the one I'd sampled in Amritsar . Rice flour and milk slowly are simmered together with a few plump grains of rice to create a soft, smooth porridge which is then left to set in shallow earthenware bowls. The earthenware bowls leach excess moisture away giving a set, spoon-hugging consistency.

This phirni had achieved that wonderful textural balance between smooth and nubbly; and had a delicate almost-set consistency. And flavoured with a very light touch of kevda (kewra) jal (An extract distilled from pandanus flowers - gives a floral and sweet fragrance). Its easy to go overboard with kevda, giving a cloyingly sweet aroma but this was sublime!

As he was scraping away at the last of the phirni at the bottom of the clay bowl, Dad mumbled "Eid is on the 21st - gives us plenty of time"

:D

EDIT 27/08/09: Had visited Sagar again today. This time I reached there when business was brisk, at 7:30 PM. And laid out on the tables outside was a veritable feast for the eyes...... In addition to all the goodies I mentioned in the post there was:

1. A huge kadhaai (wok) in which golden pillows of malpuawere being fried

2. A tray full of sunset-orangejalebis , glistening with syrup

3. Another tray with massive helpings of shahi tukra (fried bread served with thickened milk-with-nuts)

4. A collection of little plastic bowls filled with mini rasmalais

5. Ditto of individually decorated creme caramels (caramel custard)

I stared at all this goodness in a haze of sugar-induced euphoria - AND walked away with just 4 little pots of phirni - to be given away!

Am I not the most virtuously good person you ever knew? ;)

Kitchen Experiments : Vegetable Khichadi a la Dad

Today was yet another 'fun dinner' (to quote a friend) at our house - Khichadi (made by Dad) and SevPuri (made by Mom). What was I doing? Well, I was acting as sous-chef to Dad - doing all the peeling-and-chopping, laying the table - all the non-starring roles. :-( ;-)

As I said in a previous post , Dad favours easy, one-dish meals - dishes which are flavousome and wholesome. Today's khichadi was yet another such dish - and kudos to Dad, he made up the recipe himself!

Rice. Lentils (moong daal - with the shells on). Carrots. French Beans. Onion. Garlic - just a touch. Spices (Goda Masala)- the barest whisper. And salt (to taste, of course. :-) )

A bit of saute action in a wok(onion, garlic, green chillies). Followed by the veggies. And the rice and lentils. Topped with recently-boiled water. Seasonings adjustment. (masala and salt). Covered and left to cook till the rice-and-lentils-and-veggies are just-cooked. Care taken to not let them become mush.

Served piping hot. Ghee - optional.

A full tummy and a smile on the face - mandatory. :-)P