Coconut Pistachio Laddus

 No excuses for being invisible for so long on the blog. You know me and my frequent  absenteeism due to laziness well now :))  I had made these coconut laddus for Diwali.  It is a fairly simple recipe and very delicious. I anyway love coconut sweets and had been wanting to make them  and was very ecstatic when everyone who had them loved it.
I made two versions. The second photo is the one which is light pink [not peach] in colour. The 2nd photo doesn't look great in comparison with the first photo ,but it looked better than the first to the naked eyes. The only difference is the amount of beetroot used. For the first one I used an entire medium beetroot. And for the 2nd one ,I used half the beetroot.Now coming to the recipe, It is adapted from Alpana's blog.

Ingredients:
[For 15 laddus]

For The Pistachio Filling :
1/2 cup blanched, deskinned and coarsely ground Pistachios
1 tablespoon Sweetened condensed milk
Pinch of cardamom powder

For Coconut balls

1 cup desiccated coconut  + 1/2 cup for rolling the ladoos
200 Grams sweetened condensed milk ,half tin
1 cup Milk 
1 tsp Ghee/ Clarified butter
1 tsp cardamom powder
3-4 slices of fresh medium Beetroot [ light pink] or 1 medium beetroot [dark pink]


Preparation


For the Pistachio Filling:

1. Mix  all ingredients under the Pistachio filling to make a dough. Make 15 small balls and keep aside.

For the Coconut Balls:

1. Heat 1 tsp of ghee in a heavy bottomed pan. Add the desiccated coconut and stir for 2-3 minutes till the time you can smell the fragrance of the coconut. 
2. Add milk & beetroot slices and stir till the milk is all absorbed in the coconut.
3. Add condensed milk & cardamom powder & stir continuously on low heat till the mixture starts to leave the sides of the pan . 
4. Switch off the heat  as soon as the mixture leaves the sides of the pan. Let this mixture cool for 10-15 minutes .  
5. Remove the beetroot slices and mix well so that color is evenly spread. When the mixture cools off divide 15 equal portions . 
6. Flatten each Coconut ball in your palms. Place one pistachio ball into the center and close it from all sides and shape it into round balls. 
7. Take the 1/2 cup dry desiccated coconut and roll these balls in it .
8. Refrigerate it before serving as they taste best after it. You can store them in refrigerator for 1 week.

Makhane ki kheer /Foxnut Seeds Pudding

Makhane ki Kheer is another variety of Indian kheer/Pudding. It is fairly popular and is usually made during fasting as Makhana is considered as an auspicious ingredient in offerings to the Lord during festivals.

Makhana/Foxnut seeds is often called as Lotus seeds. I am not sure whether it is correct as Wiki says that Makhana is from water lily and not  Lotus.  A less known fact is that around 90% of the world's total Makhana production comes from Bihar.[reference]

Ingredients

[For 3 people]

50 gms Makhana /Foxnut Seeds

2 tsp Ghee /Clarified Butter

1 litre milk [ I use toned]

2-4 tbsp Sugar  [  I like my kheer less sweet, had added only 2tbsp]

Kesar/Saffron, few strands

3 cardamom, powdered

1  & 1/2 tbsp charoli/chironji

1 tbsp chopped pistcachios

Pistachios/ Almonds for garnishing

Preparation

1. Heat the ghee in a pan  and saute Makahanas for 4-5 minutes till they are crisp. Keep aside and once it is cool enough, crush them coarsely.
2. Soak saffron strands  in 1 tbsp warm milk
3. Heat milk in a heavy bottomed pan. Add saffron milk and boil the milk on low heat till it reduces to almost half the amount. Keep stirring in between to prevent burning.
4. Add the crushed makhanas and simmer for about 10-15 minutes on low heat. The milk should be thick  and runny, and not dried. You can reduce the simmer time, if you feel that the milk is drying up.
5. Add the charoli/chironji ,sugar,cardamom powder and pistachio and mix well. Keep on heat for 2-3 minutes more.
6. Remove from heat, and garnish with the pistachios, almonds and serve it cooled.

Something for Diwali - Moong Dal Ladoo

It is Diwali time, and I should be making sweets. But, I don't know what has got into me, suddenly I don't feel like having anything sweet. Must be due to eating excess of gond  ladoos that a relative brought few weeks back.  My brother who is in town for couple of months, has an equally sweet tooth as mine,maybe a bit more. So, I thought of making these quickfix ladoos for him. Looking at how easy and quick they are to make , I  will make them again for Diwali.  It must have been decades since I tried binding the ladoos . Had forgotten how difficult it is to deal with the warm mixture :-) Anyone, any suggestions  for reducing the burning in hands?

Ingredients

The recipe is from here
(makes 12 ,size as in the photo)
1 cup yellow moong dal (split green gram-husk removed)
3/4 cup sugar , powdered ( it was a bit sweet, can reduce few tbsp)
3-4 cardamoms, peeled and powdered
8-10 chopped cashews,
10-12 tsp ghee/clarified butter

Preparation

1. Toast moong dal in a wide pan on low heat till it has a uniform reddish brown color. Remove from heat and spread on a plate to cool.
2. Heat a teaspoon of ghee and saute cashews until light brown. Keep aside.
3. When the moong dal cools, grind it to a fine powder and mix with cashews, sugar and cardamom powder.
4. Heat about ten teaspoons of ghee in a wide pan. Add dal/sugar mixture and stir until well combined. 
5. Remove from heat and shape into lemon sized balls when the mixture is still warm.
6. In case the mixture cannot be easily shaped. ,add teaspoons of hot ghee gradually.

100 Yummy Diwali Sweets Recipes - Ebook By Indus Ladies

Indusladies.com is the largest online community for Indian Women.It has verious forums and communities about family and relationships, marraiage and spouses,kitchen and household, beauty and fashion, health, diet and fitness etc.

 

For the upcoming Diwali on October 26th, 2011, Indusladies are compiling an E-Book called “100 Yummy Diwali Sweet Recipes”. They are collecting sweet/dessert recipes from various bloggers to be featured in this E-Book.   You can submit your blogpost too before Oct 8th. The details are here on 100 Yummy Diwali Sweet Recipes

I am sending my Pistachio and White Chocolate Burfi Recipe for the E-Book.

If you are interested in making some other Indian sweets from my blog, here are some of them.

Lauki Halwa 

Parwal ki mithai

Cream Chop

Cream Chop / Malai Chop, Raksha Bandhan Celebrations and BlogAdda Notable Newbie Award

The seasons of Indian festivals have started, beginning with Raksha Bandhan. It is day to celebrate the bond between brothers and sisters. It was a big day for us during our childhood days, when  all of us siblings were still  living together. Having grown up in a small town which didn't have an English medium school after 10th, we had to leave the town one by one as we passed our 10th class , for further studies. It became increasingly difficult to gather together on the Raksha bandhan day and now we just manage to celebrate the day by sending rakhis to our brother by post. Anyway to mark this special day, I wanted to make an Indian sweet. 

And I have another big reason to celebrate too . Last Week BlogAdda annouced the notable newbies for the month, And my blog was also conferred this award. Thanks a lot to the BlogAdda team for giving my blog this recognition.


This mithai / Indian sweet is easily available in sweet shops , but I wanted to give it a different shape and look ,so decided to make it at home. In my town it was called  Cream Chop / Malai Chop . I don't know what it is called at other places , but it is from the same family of chum chum  and Rasgullas . Their Sibling :))

Usually this sweet is a round or rectangular shape. The sweet is sliced into two and filled with sweetened reduced milk / Rabdi .Since I wanted to make a flower shape, I thought slicing would be difficult, so I made them thinner. This way, I could put two pieces together instead of slicing one.

Ingredients
[For 6 -8 sweets]

For Homemade Paneer
1 litre whole milk [about 5 cups]
2 tsp vinegar/lemon juice

For Sugur Syrup
1 cup sugar
3 cups Water

For Malai/Rabdi

1/2 litre whole milk
 2 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp Cardamom powder

Preparation
For Homemade Paneer

1. Bring milk to a boil. When it comes to a boil,  add  Vinegar or lemon juice. Stir until milk  separates into curds and whey completely. Add some more vinegar/lemon juice it it doesn't seem to separate.
2. Pour this paneer on a muslin cloth or cheesecloth lined colander. Drain all water and then wash it with cold water to remove the sourness. Gather all sides of the  muslin cloth and twist and squeeze to drain all water. Put a heavy pan on top of this wrapped paneer for an hour to drain any remaining water.
3. After an hour, knead the paneer well to make a smooth dough for about 4 minutes. If you are making flower shape, make 12-16 small balls and flatten it and cut the shape using a cookie cutter. If you are making a round or rectangle shape, make  only 8 balls and shape them accordingly. 

For the Sugar Syrup

1.  In a pan, bring water and sugar to boil till all the sugar dissolves. 
2. Add the paneer balls/flowers and cover the pan with a lid and cook for 25 minutes.  The balls will get double in size. 
3. Turn the heat off and let the balls remain in the sugar syrup for 4-5 hours.

For the Malai /Rabdi

1. Heat milk in a wok/ kadhai . When a cream layer forms on the top, remove the layer with a spatula and spread it on to the sides of the wok. Repeat this process till  the milk reduces to 1/3rd. 
2. Scratch the cream layer that you have collected on the sides of the wok and mix in with the reduced milk. You can add some food colour if you wish.
3. Add sugar little by little and when it is sweet enough for your taste stop, and add cardamom powder . Stir for a minute or two and turn off the heat. Let it cool and then refrigerate it.

Assembling
  When the paneer balls are ready after having been in the syrup for several hours, take it out from syrup and slice it horizontally. Fill in the malai /rabdi between the two slices of the paneer balls/flowers.Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving. Garnish with chopped pistachios/

Cups of Sunshine - Chocolate and Carrots

You can not only lick these cups but EAT it too as it is made of chocolate

What should I say about this !! This is as delicious as it looks. I have been wanting to make chocolate cups for sometime but didn't want to fill it with usual icecream or fruits filling. I thought why not to Indianise it and serve it with something Indian. So here it is , a fusion of the great Indian Carrot dessert  gajar halwa and chocolates.I had the visual in mind , which looked very very attractive and thankfully it tasted extremely delicious too.

I had very less amount of chocolates in my pantry, so the cups were thinner. It had to be eaten immediately as the chocolate would melt very soon. So, I suggest in the recipe below to have a thicker cup.

 

Ingredients

[for 4-5]

For Chocolate Cups

1 cup Dark semisweet chocolate,chopped

Cupcake liners

For Carrot Stuffing

2 cups Carrot, grated

2 cups Milk

1/4 cup Sugar

a pinch Cardamom powder

7-8 Cashewnuts, halved

6-10 Raisins [optional]

1 tbsp Clarified butter/ghee

Preparation

For Chocolate Cups

1. Line the cupcake pan with cupcake liners. If you are using thin liners use 3 liners for each to have a thicker base.
2. Melt chocolate in top of double boiler over simmering water, stirring until smooth.  
3. Spoon 1 tablespoon of melted chocolate into each paper liner. Brush the inside of the cupcake liners to coat evenly. Freeze until chocolate firms for about 30 minutes. 
4. Melt the leftover chocolate again and reapply a second coat using the same method  Freeze until completely set, about 1 hour. 
5. Once set, peel the cupcake liners.Whenever you feel that chocolate is melting, refreeze it. It can be made a day in advance and needs to be refrigerated covered.

 For Carrot Stuffing 

1. Boil milk in a pan till it reduces to almost half. Keep stirring often so that it doesn't burn at the bottom of the pan.Keep aside. 
2. Heat ghee in a separate pan. Roast the cashew and raisin in it and take it out and keep aside. Add grated carrots to the ghee and stir fry for 7-8 minutes. 
3. Add milk and cook until the milk dries. When all the milk is soaked up, add sugar and cardamom powder. This will release some moisture. Cook till it dries up completely. Add raisins and cashewnuts.  Take out and when it cools, refrigerate it covered.

Assembling

Once the carrot stuffing cools, Fill the chocolate cups with it in form of heaps. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

Sending this to the "Veggie/Fruit of the Month - Carrot" Event by Priya and Revathi

Makhana Matar /Lotus Seeds and Peas Curry

I had heard of Makhana/Lotus Seeds/Foxnut Curry sometime back but have never tasted it. At home, it was only used in sweet dishes and also as a snack[ stir fry it in butter till it is golden brown and crispy and add salt/pepper or chaat masala]. So when I saw it the menu of   Kebab and Kurries , I read the description and main ingredients carefully so that I could try it later. It was a lotus seeds ,peas in a yogurt based curry.
This recipe is  an adaptation of the recipe here . I must say , this was a nice and different taste.
The clarified butter and the saboot garam masala[ cinnamon,cardamom,cloves] accentuates the taste.

Ingredients

2 Cups Makhana /Lotus Seeds[Choose big seeds]
1 Cup Green Peas
1 tbsp clarified butter/ghee
1 and 1/2 tbsp butter
1 Bay Leaf
1 inch Cinnamon Stick
3 cloves
2 large Cardamom
1/2 cup Cashewnut paste
1 tbsp ginger/garlic paste
1 medium Onion ,chopped
1 cup beaten curd
Salt,to taste
1 tsp Coriander powder
1/2 tsp Cumin powder
1/2 tsp pepper powder
1/3 tsp turmeric powder
2 tsp Kashmiri Red chili powder
1 tsp garam masala
4 tbsp cream
1 cup water, add some more if needed.

Preparation

1. Parboil Peas and keep aside.
2. Heat clarified butter/ghee and stir fry the Makhana/lotus seeds till golden brown.Keep aside.
3. Heat butter in a pan and then add bay leaf,cinnamon,cardamom,cloves.Saute till they start to crackle.
4. Add ginger/garlic paste and sauté well.Add onions and fry till translucent.
5. Add cashewnut paste and sauté till the butter separates.
6. Add curd,coriander powder,cumin seeds powder,salt,pepper,turmeric powder, red chili powder and garam masala powder.
7. Add Green Peas ,Makhanas and water and let the gravy simmer well.
8. Add cream and let it simmer for few minutes.
9. Serve Hot.

Parwal Ki Mithai

This used to be my favorite Indian sweet. It still is but I haven't had it in years. Looking at the parwals [ pointed gourd ]in the market, I was immediately taken  back to my childhood, when we used to wait for summers to arrive so that we could get this mithai /sweet. Our small little town had only one good quality sweet shop "Ambar" then, and only that shop used to make this mithai. So, many a times we would land up at Ambar only to find out that parwal ki mithahi was already over. It was such a popular item in our town.
After having moved out to Delhi for my further studies, I still craved for this.Though,Delhi has a great sweets culture, this mithai was not available there. It was one such craving that I made this mithai for the first time. It tasted good, but it didn't acquire the same colour as "Ambar shop". It was pale green. I don't think I even had a recipe, I made it the way I thought it could be made. This time around, I wanted the colour to be right too. So, I followed Chef Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe, the image of which was closest to the Ambar Shop's mithai. He has used a pinch of baking soda to get the colour, which really worked. The only thing I found a bit of problem was to check if the parwals were done. No timing is mentioned in the recipe, so when I took out after 10 minutes, it was already sligthly overdone. So,I guess next time I make,I need to taste them at regular intervals to see that it is exactly done. It should be anywhere near 5-8 mins..


So here is the recipe of Parwal ki mithai which comes from Benaras, but is very popular in Bihar.


Ingredients
[Recipe :Adapted from Sanjeev Kapoor ]
250 grams Parwals [Pointed Gourd] , Fresh and big
A pinch of Baking Soda
1 cup: Mawa (khoya)  : How to make Khoya
1 1/2 cups Sugar
1/4 tsp Green cardamom powder
10 Almonds, chopped
10 Pistachios, chopped
1 cup Water

Preparation

1. Wash and peel the parwal's outer layer so that you can see the white-greenish layer.  Don't worry, this white will turn green when you boil it in steps ahead. Make a slit lengthwise ,so it is open from one side and attached from all other sides. Remove all the seeds from inside.keep aside.
2. For the stuffing, In a pan roast the khoya on medium heat till it becomes soft. Add half cup sugar and continue to roast till it is dryish.[ You can reduce the quantity of sugar here according to your taste].Add green cardamom powder and mix. Take it off the heat and add almonds and pistachios and mix. Transfer the mixture onto a plate and cool
3. In another pan boil 1 cup sugar with one cup water to make a thin sugar syrup of 1 thread  consistency.If you are familiar with another method of making syrup of 1 thread consistency follow that, as at many sites I found 1: 1/2 ratio of sugar and water. I followed  a middle path.
4.  In another pan, heat water, add a pinch of baking  soda. Add parwals and boil for two to three minutes. 
5. Drain and put them in the sugar syrup and cook till they soften. It will take around 8-10 minutes. Drain and cool.
6. Stuff them with the khoya mixture. Sprinkle some slivered almonds and pistachio on top.
7. Refrigerate for few hours and serve chilled. Can be stored for a couple of days in refrigerator.

Sending it to Aipi and Priya's Bookmark Event .

Sending this to Event celebrate sweets-stuffed sweets.

Lauki Halwa /Bottle Gourd / Doodhi Halwa

Sweet dish made up of vegetables !! Yes ! It can be done and it can taste awesome too  :)  I had tasted lauki halwa  few years back at our office picnic when one of my friend had made it. And as expected  ,I was skeptical to taste it. But one bite and I was converted. I never tried to make it until today. I had lauki and an opened can of condensed milk which I had to use soon. Though I have used condensed milk, normal milk can be used too. The only slightly negative thing about lauki halwa is that it doesn't have a very appealing appearance. I had already thought of combating it using spinach puree to impart it some colour. The spinach puree idea was inspired by a coconut spinach barfi my another friend's father used to make [this was also few years back when I was still doing my post-graduation]. That barfi used to taste awesome so I was sure that adding spinach is no way going to spoil my lauki halwa. And I was right. It adds to the colour without adding anything to taste.

Ingredients
2 Cups Grated Lauki/ Doodhi / Bottle Gourd[ skin and seeds removed] -
1 tbsp ghee/ clarified butter
3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk [ You can replace this with sugar and milk]
3 green cardamoms powdered
Dry fruits of your choice [cashwenut,almonds,pistachio]
3 tbsp spinach puree [ wash spinach and remove stems and blanch it in  an uncovered pan with little water for 3-4 minutes, and grind it when it cools]


Preparation

1. Heat ghee/ clarified butter in a pan. Add dry fruits and fry till it slightly changes colour.
2. Add grated Lauki/ Dudhi / Bottle Gourd and cook for 10 minutes on slow flame .
3. Add condensed milk ,spinach puree and cook till all the condensed milk dries up. It will take around 10 minutes.  Add cardamom powder and mix well.Take off the stove and serve it warm or chilled.  

Notes :
If you are using  sweetened condensed milk there is no need to add sugar. If you are using normal milk, then let the milk dry up and add sugar once milk dries up.
If the colour is not to your liking, you can add more spinach puree.

Pistachio and White Chocolate Burfi

This weekend was all about food and Mumbai. My brother in law and his wife were here in Bombay/Mumbai and wanted a taste of Mumbai life. Animesh and I have been here now for almost 3 years but there are still so many popular hangouts that we have not visited.Cafe Leopold  and Candies being few of them. You may have read or heard about Cafe Leopold  in the novel ShantaRam and also because it was the first

target of the 26/11 terrorists attacks . Cafe Leopold was not a place for us teetotalers so it would be unfair to judge it.The food was average. Late midnight on Friday, we stopped at Bachelors at the marine drive. It is a road side stall which is open entire night and has the best chocolate shakes and their menu include Ferroro Rocher chocolate shakes too!

On Saturday, me and my sis-in-law went to Candies for lunch and were wowed by its ambience. Such a green and spacious budget restaurant was totally unexpected in Mumbai. The food was good, salad was great. And even though I was full,I wanted to taste the desserts to compare with what I make, to know how much scope of improvement I had. I bought two mini cupcakes in lemon and chocolate flavor. I would be immodest ,but I found mine better . The ones at Candies were dry and nothing great. But , it is a place worth many revisits.

Sunday was even more foodilicious. We had  pav bhaji and chikoo shakes at Amar Juice Centre, golgappes and chaats at juhu beach, Kulhad tea  at Tea Centre ,Churchgate and finally the foodie weekend ended with  pizzas at the Pizzeria, Marine Drive. 

Now coming to the recipe :)  I had no idea about the Pistachio day on Feb 26 until my friend asked me what I had planned for it. I only needed a reason to make something new, but the weekend was going to be busy eating out , so I made these on Monday. These are easy to make but it was hard work for me, as the first recipe I tried did not come out pretty and was a bit sticky. My pistachhio burfi's were bottle green color  instead of bright green.  

I was not satisfied with the color and I couldn't have shared this recipe with others to make.

So, I tried another recipe, which involved blanching the pistachio first and then peeling it to give it a vibrant colour. I had almost used all the pistachios that I had for the first recipe, and there was only half cup left for the 2nd one. The colour would have been even more vibrant if all the pistachios were green.The ones I used had mostly yellows. I was happy with the 2nd recipe, but I had to do something to the first one to remove the stickiness and make it appealing. I had a brainwave to use white chocolate to cover it ,which would harden after freezing and voila!! The new dessert has been invented. Can I patent this !!! :-)  

And I knew I had made a great sweet dish when the first words my husband uttered was "Wow!! This tastesl like a premium dessert ! 

So, my suggestion to everyone who is going to make this- Though you can simply make it without the white chocolate, go for the white chocolate cover to make this extra special!

For 12 small burfis

Ingredients

1 cup  + 5 tbsp shelled pistachhio

1/3  cup+ 2 tbsp  sugar

1/4 cup water

Ghee/Clarified Butter 1 tbsp

2 Cardamom powdered

White chocolate - 4oz

Preparation

1. Blanch the pistachios in boiling water for 2-3 minutes
2. Drain the water and remove peels.  
3. Chop 5 tbsp blanched pistachio and keep aside.
4. Grind 1 cup pistachios to a paste without adding any water
5. Heat water and sugar to make a sugar syrup till it reduces to 1 and half Tbsp syrup.  
6. Add the pistachios,cardamom powder and ghee/clarified butter and start stirring continuously till you see the mixture forms into a soft ball.
7. Spread it onto a greased plate and smoothen the top.
8. Cut it into desired shapes when cooled for burfis
9. For White chocolate cover. 

• Melt white chocolate and mix till it smoothenes. 
• Cut parchment papers double the size of the burfis. Put a layer of chopped pistachios on it. Cover it with melted chocolate and smoothen the top using a spatula.
• On one half of the parchment paper,place the burfis. Cover it with second half and freeze for 30 mins till the chocolate hardens.
• Remove the parchment paper once the chocolate is set

You can check this video on youtube to see the consistency required. I don't understand the language but the way they make gives you an idea how to go ahead.Recipe Video