Tag Archives: Sweets

Recipes: Apple Halwa

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Happy New Year! Here’s wishing every one of you a year that’s filled with love, hope, happiness and positivity!

And to start the new year, here’s a sweet dish that I made some time ago. I had many apples at home, which would all start to go bad at the same time. So instead of requesting everyone to eat them, I decided to make apple halwa with some of them. It was delicious and is something I will make again when I am craving something sweet.

Apple Halwa

Ingredients:

  • 3 medium-sized red apples
  • 1.5 tbsp ghee
  • ¼ cup + 2 tbsp sugar, brown sugar, or jaggery
  • ½ tsp ground cinnamon
  • 2 tbsp raisins
  • 10–12 almonds and cashew nuts

Method:

  • Peel and grate the apples and set them aside.
  • Finely chop the almonds and cashew nuts.
  • Heat the ghee in a pan over medium heat.
  • Add the chopped nuts and once they are brown, remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon and keep them in a kitchen towel until later.
  • Add the grated apples and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and most of the liquid has evaporated. This should take about 7 to 8 minutes.
  • Add the sugar or jaggery and mix well.
  • Once the sugar or jaggery has melted into the apple, add the cinnamon and continue cooking, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and pulls away from the sides of the pan, which should take about 5–7 minutes more.
  • If the apples are sour, you may need to add more sweetener to taste and adjust the sweetness if needed.
  • Add the raisins, almonds and cashew nuts, keeping some aside to garnish and mix well.
  • Serve warm, garnished with chopped nuts.

Notes:

  • Use any variety of red apples you like, but sweet and crisp apples will work best.
  • For a smoother texture, the apples can be blended after cooking before adding them back to the pan.
  • This halwa can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Recipes: Potato Halwa

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Happy Navratri! Today is the first day of the nine days that are spent in prayer, contemplation, and celebrating women.

Last year during Navratri, I wanted to make a different sweet each day as an offering to the Goddess. One of the days, when I didn’t know what to make and had some boiled potatoes and sweet potatoes in the fridge, I made this recipe which I found online. Usually only made from potatoes, I added sweet potatoes to the mix and the result was a super delicious halwa, which nobody could believe was made from potatoes!

This recipe is slightly heavier during the summer months because of the carb and starch content in the potatoes and so is apt for winters. Also, because it is heavy, you can make it if you are fasting as potatoes are the quintessential fasting vegetable.

Potato Halwa

Ingredients:

  • 3 medium-sized potatoes, boiled, peeled, and mashed
  • 1 medium-sized sweet potato, boiled, peeled, and mashed
  • ½ cup milk
  • 1/3 to ½ cup sugar according to taste
  • ½ teaspoon cardamom powder
  • 4 tbsp ghee
  • A generous pinch of saffron
  • 2 tbsp chopped mixed nuts like cashews, almonds, and pistachios
  • 1 tsp raisins

Method:

  • Take the saffron in a small bowl and add 1 tbsp warm milk to it let the saffron dissolve. You may need to stir it a bit or even cook it in the microwave in 30-second increments.
  • In a small pan, with 1 tsp ghee, fry the mixed nuts and raisins and keep aside. You can also dry roast them as I did to make the recipe slightly healthy. Keep aside.
  • Heat ghee in a pan and when the ghee heats up, add the mashed potatoes.
  • Sauté on low heat for about 5-6 minutes until the potatoes start to change in colour and start becoming golden brown.
  • Add in the milk, sugar, cardamom powder and saffron and mix well to combine. The sugar will start to melt and the mixture becomes watery. Make sure you stir well that there are no lumps in this mixture.
  • Stir continuously until the halwa turns dry again and the ghee starts oozing out.
  • Add half the chopped nuts and raisins and mix well.
  • Cook for another minute and switch off the flame.
  • Serve warm garnished with the remaining nuts and raisins.
  • This dish is best served warm, so if you are planning to make it ahead of time, just warm it in the microwave or the stove and serve.

Recipes: Phirni

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I like to think of Phirni as a sophisticated cousin of the Payasam. Also known as Kheer, Kheeri, Payesh, Payox, Payasam, Phirni is a sweet dish and a type of wet pudding, usually made by boiling milk, sugar or jaggery, and rice, although rice is sometimes substituted with dals, tapioca or vermicelli. It is typically flavoured with desiccated coconut, cardamom, raisins, saffron, cashews, pistachios, almonds, or other dry fruits and nuts and is typically served as a dessert. The word kheer is derived from the Sanskrit word for milk, ksheer and is also the archaic name for sweet rice pudding. The difference as I see between kheer or payasam and phirni is that payasam has whole rice grains cooked in it while Phirni has powdered rice, usually, Basmati added to it. Tasting great both hot and cold, we prefer it cold, but this is a personal preference.

Phirni

Ingredients:

  • ¼ cup basmati rice
  • 1-litre full cream milk
  • ½ cup sugar or as required
  • 10 to 12 almonds, blanched and peeled, keep about a tbsp for garnishing
  • 10 to 12 pistachios, blanched and peeled, keep about a tbsp for garnishing
  • ½ tsp cardamom powder
  • A large pinch of saffron strands
  • 2 tsp rose water

Method:

  • Rinse the basmati rice a couple of times in water. Drain the water and dry the rice by spreading them on a tray or plate. Let the rice dry completely and keep it aside.
  • Grind the rice in a grinder till the consistency resembles fine semolina or couscous and keep the ground rice aside.
  • In a small bowl, add the nuts, add boiling water to it and keep aside for about 30 minutes.
  • After 30 minutes, drain the water and let the nuts cool slightly. Peel the nuts and slice or chop them finely and keep them aside. Keep aside about 1 tbsp each of the almonds and pistachios for the garnish.
  • Heat milk in a thick-bottomed broad pan.
  • When the milk starts to boil, take 1 tbsp of the milk into a small bowl, add in the saffron strands and stir it until the saffron dissolves and the milk becomes a lovely orange colour.
  • Let the milk in the pan reach a rolling boil, lower the heat and add the ground rice. Stir and add the sugar.
  • Cook the ground rice in the milk on low to medium heat on the pan with the pan uncovered and keep stirring at intervals so that the milk is completely lump-free.
  • Add In the cardamom powder, almonds, pistachios, cardamom powder and saffron-infused milk.
  • Stir and cook for another five minutes, or a bit more until the Phirni thickens and the rice granules are softened and cooked completely.
  • Switch off the flame and drizzle the rose water.
  • Garnish it with the reserved chopped nuts and cover tightly and let the Phirni cool down.
  • Once the Phirni is cool, refrigerate until it becomes cold and serve cold as a dessert. It should stay for 2-3 days in the fridge, but I doubt it will last that long!

Recipes: Coconut Moong Dal Payasam

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Happy New Year!! Here’s wishing you all loads of good fortune, luck and blessings in 2022. May this year bring back all the joy and happiness that we missed over the last two years.

And to start the new year here’s a sweet recipe to start the year on a sweet note.

Sometime back, during the festive season, I was on a call with my mother and we were discussing sweets, specifically the payasam we make during most festivals. I was telling her I was looking to make something new and different from the usual vermicelli or Dal payasam I usually made. She shared with me this recipe, which is simple, does not use milk and is really rich. I made it and it was a huge hit at home with requests to make it again. So I am sharing this with you too.

Coconut Moong Dal Payasam

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup grated coconut
  • 1 tbsp rice
  • 2 tbsp Moong Dal
  • 2 cups Jaggery
  • Water as required
  • 1 tbsp ghee
  • 10-15 cashewnuts
  • 10-15 raisins
  • A pinch of cardamom powder

Method:

  • Dry roast the rice and moong dal until the dal starts to become a golden brown. At this point, remove from the fire and keep aside to cool down.
  • When cool, blend it to a powder and in the same blend, add the grated coconut and with a bit of water, blend it to a smooth paste. Make sure the paste is as smooth as possible.
  • Halve the cashewnuts and Keep aside.
  • In a pan, heat the ghee and fry the cashewnuts to a golden brown colour. Keep aside.
  • In the same pan, fry the raisins till they plump up and keep aside.
  • In the same pan, mix the coconut paste with 3 times as much water and boil the mixture in a low to medium flame.
  • In the meantime, finely chop the jaggery till it comes to about twice as much as the coconut paste. When the coconut water mixture is at a nice rolling boil, add the jaggery and continue to stir so that it does not stick to the bottom of the pan.
  • Continue boiling for about 5 minutes after it reaching a rolling boil and at this point add in the cardamom powder, raisins and cashew nuts.
  • Switch off the flame, let it cool slightly and serve.

It is delicious served hot and cold. Also note that as the payasam cools down, it will also thicken a bit more, so don’t be too worried if it’s thinner than what you expected.

Recipes: Paruppu Payasam aka Moongdal Payasam

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A very simple traditional recipe which does not take much time to prepare, I made this payasam the day after Avani Avittam, when S and BB had to say the Gayatri Japam 1008 times. It is traditional to make a sweet on this day, and since I didn’t have much time in the morning, I decided to go with this simple and tasty sweet dish.

Paruppu Payasam

Ingredients:
1 litre milk, boiled and cooled
1/3 cup moong dal
10-15 cashewnuts, halved
¼ to ½ cup powdered Jaggery or brown sugar
1 tbsp ghee
1/8 tsp cardamom powder
Water as required

Method:
Heat a pan and once the pan is warm, dry roast the moong dal till you get a a lovely fragrance. Make sure you don’t over-roast it and burn it. Remove from the pan and keep aside.

Fry the cashewnuts in the ghee until they are nice and brown and keep aside.
In a small pressure cooker or a container which you can put inside the cooker, mix the roasted moong dal with some milk and water and pressure cook it for some 3-4 whistles. Open the cooker when it cools down and lightly mash the dal.

If you are doing this on a stove top, the method is the same, only keep an eye on the dal when it is cooking and top up milk or water as needed and then lightly mash the dal.
Once the dal has been mashed up a bit, add in the powdered jaggery and mix well.

Put this back on the flame and then add the balance boiled and cooled milk and cook on a low flame for another 5 minutes until the milk, dal and jaggery gets completely mixed together.

Now sprinkle the cardamom powder and the fried cashewnuts along with the ghee.

Do a taste test and serve hot or cold. If you are making this as an offering, then of course, you can’t taste it. We prefer eating this cold as I feel this enhances the taste, but this is personal preference.

You can also make this with only milk to get a richer taste. Also some people use coconut milk plus normal milk, but I don’t make this version.