Badusha

Some sweets are connected to beautiful festivals. They always remind us of occasions and celebrations. I always connect Badusha or Balushahi with Diwali. I had friends who would serve homemade and sometimes store bought Badushas and they would be loved by everyone. I know this post should have actually been a Diwali special but sweets don’t need an occasion, they just need a sweet craving and zest and time to make a sweet dish.

Diwali is over but still posting this delicious balushahi recipe as I can’t resist my cravings and eternal love for Indian desserts or mithai. Since we don’t get Badusha in USA as it ain’t that popular here, mainly I feel its because the people have not tried it. So, I decided on making my own, multiple unsuccessful trials but I just had to make it perfect and I am glad I did. The temptation was too strong to let it go.

My mom is a big fan of this sweet dish. In fact I have heard stories that this was one of the sweet dishes made on my parent’s wedding. There is an old sweet market in my home city Jodhpur called “Pongal pada” and the street has variety of Badushas in different colors and textures and are called Maakhan Bada [meaning sweets made using butter]. Though Badusha is soaked in sugar syrup, the Maakhan Bada is covered with thick coated sugar, something close to fondant but slightly hard.

Once I cracked the recipe of the Badusha, there was no looking back. Its easy, flaky and your desire to eat just one, Did I say eat just? No one eats just one Badusha. Never!!! Its Balushahi in North India and called Badusha in South India. So, no matter what you call it, do try the recipe and make your own. These come out awesome, flaky and light. Once you try them, you will never bother getting them from the market sweet store anymore. Hope you like and enjoy them as much as I did.

Rose Kulfi

The wonderful world of cold desserts and the version of ice creams served in India “Kulfi”. The word Kulfi or Qulfi is an Indian word derived from the Persian word “Qufli” which means “covered cup”. The dessert was likely originated during the era of the Mughal Empire in the 16th century. The mixture of milk, sugar and nuts. Kulfi is a gifted recipe from the Middle eastern travelers and settlers to India and neighboring countries. Along with so many architectural gifts to India, like the Taj mahal, which even till date makes our country so proud and has millions of visitors travel India only to see Taj Mahal once in their lifetime and so many gorgeous forts, along with Red Fort where the PM addresses the nation every year are all an awesome example of Mughal architectural skill.

Coming back the Kulfi, Indian cuisine were not aware of using Orange blossom, Rose water, saffron or a wide variety of dry fruits in the cuisine. The Mughals while introducing their cuisines and blending them with Indian flavors resulted in wide variety of Biryanis, Kebabs, curries and sweet dishes including Gulab Jamun, Jalebi and Rabri to name a few and of course, Kulfi.

This sweet dish is rich in flavor and can be made in various flavors and is always served cold. It can be served with Basil seeds or sabza that are soaked for an hour, as falooda. It can be flavored while serving as well. I usually like mine to be served with Rose syrup, or the popular Rooh Afza.

This particular recipe has Milk boiled till it thickens and reduces. Added Khoya and cooked further after adding sugar, cardamom powder, saffron, crushed Rose petals, Rose flavoring, a little red food color and Milk powder to thicken the mixture making the Kulfi more dense and creamier. You can always change the flavors in a Kulfi keeping the base the same.

I also use Silver leaf for decoration, but that’s always optional, but something that makes you home kulfi different from the restaurant and trust me, even better.

Besan ke Laddu

Besan ke Laddu is just pure love. I mean you have hundreds of varieties of Indian sweets, there can be different Kheers, Halwas and other numerous kinds of burfis, also Laddus, but there is something about Besan Laddu which is just pure love at first sight.

I know I sound like those Moms from some Bollywood movies from the 80’s and 90’s who always made Laddus for their kids and handed them in a large steel container while they would be leaving for work/studies to another city and it always came in with instructions of how the son should just be eating one each day and not share much, which of course the son forgot with convenience as soon as he reached his destination and his room mates and friends could smell the fragrance of home made Laddus from a mile away… OMG! can’t believe I just had the time and energy to mention all this. Well, hope it reminded you of your childhood movies if you have watched the “Masala Bollywood” and if you have not, I am sure the story still brought a smile to your face.

So, one day like a Bollywood mother I also got in the groove of making some Besan Laddus and I think its not just one of the easiest but one of the best sweet dishes ever. Its easy to make, few ingredients and takes very little time. If you are new at making Indian sweets, this is your go to dish. The instructions are pretty easy which makes it easy to follow and wonderfully impressive. Enjoy!!!

Sooji Ka Halwa

Sooji when made sweet, is called Sooji ka Sheera. Several variants of this dish are available under other names in various parts of India. People also call it Sooji ka Halwa or Mohan Bhog. This dish history shows its connection with the Middle east where this cuisine, semolina is roasted and then further cooked with water, honey, camphor, saffron, and sesame oil. In 14th-century Spain, semolina was cooked with almond milk, oil and optionally saffron for coloring, therefore the actual origin of our “Indianised” Sooji ka halwa is actually unknown. But, it still is one of the fastest and yummiest sweet dishes ever.

So, a friend called me asking me for the recipe of Sooji Ka Halwa. I just casually said, “you could have just checked my blog” to which she replied that she couldn’t find it there and decided to call. That’s when I realized that I have not shared the recipe here. Sometimes, the simplest of things are things we forget to do. Honestly, this Halwa is so easy that it can be made by my 9 year old…Okay! little exaggeration, but definitely by a Bachelor who’s missing his mom’s food and can do basic cooking like making an egg. Its easier than making an omelet, since no knives and chopping is involved, Sooji ka Halwa is an easy impressive dish.

My mother never made Sooji ka halwa at home, but weddings in Rajasthan tend to have at least one gathering where this is served as a sweet dish. Don’t ask me why. While halwa is a broad term used for pudding like desserts in India, the most common halwa that my mom made was Gajar ka Halwa during winters, Ande ka halwa on some occasions halwa and Aate ka halwa on most weekends.

Sooji ka halwa was not that common and now when I think of it, I feel it might be something my mom never enjoyed cooking because if she did, she would have made it since it can be easily made it 15-20 minutes. So, Sooji Ka Halwa is made with sooji (semolina), ghee (clarified butter) , sugar and water. Everything else is optional. I only like using cashews, almonds and pistachios, whereas, Mr. Parveez likes Raisins as well in his Halwa. Some like adding milk in place of water, but I think that makes it a little heavy and creamy. Milk also tends to overpower the flavor of Sooji, so I prefer making it with water. I like flavoring mine with cardamom and saffron, making it more rich in fragrance, but you can always skip them both. Though, I would suggest that you use Cardamom powder, even if you omit the saffron.

I usually use half the amount of ghee as to Sooji. Some people prefer more ghee, but I feel this amount is good enough and it does really make a great halwa. For this recipe, I do use same amount of sugar and sooji. I use granulated sugar therefore this might sound too much sugar, though if you are using sugar with bigger granules, you should boil the sugar in the water till the sugar melts and add the water to the roasted sooji. If you are using granulated sugar like me, you can add the sugar straight to the roasted sooji and add warm water to it.

I use 3 times the water since I like my halwa more on the softer side. The most important step! If you don’t roast the sooji properly, the halwa will have raw taste. I don’t like to brown my sooji for the halwa. So I roast it on low heat, stirring continuously until it’s nice and fragrant. It takes around 7 to 8 minutes for it to roast on low heat. When you add hot water to the hot pan of roasted sooji, it bubbles up like crazy. So be very careful. Add it slowly and be careful. Make sure your halwa is smooth, so stir continuously as you add the water. If you don’t do that, it will form lumps and won’t have the creamy texture.

Besan Halwa

It is the month of September and despite the pandemic, the festival mood has been set all over the world. Autumn season is coming and the cool breezes brings nice nip in the air and declares the beginning of the festivities. Besan ka Halwa is the quintessential dish to celebrate the season for every reason. The rich and decadent Besan ka Halwa takes you over the moon and make you fall in love it.

Besan is also known as Chickpea Flour or Gram Flour. Besan has a high protein content that makes it good for weight watchers. It is also good for heart health and managing the cholesterol. But, I don’t mean you eat Besan ke Pakode and Halwa everyday, I wish we could but NO. But, what you can do is eat this Halwa with a little lesser guilt than what you would usually do.

There are many ways that people prepare Besan ka Halwa. Everyone makes it super amazing. Honestly, I don’t think there is any way you can go wrong with Besan ka Halwa, its so easy to fix if you do go wrong by any chance. I start with roasting besan in ghee and once it is done roasting, I add hot milk infused with little saffron and once the milk is all absorbed, I add sugar and cardamom powder for sweetness and enhancing taste and cook till desired consistency.

A lot of times people turn on their “guilt mode’ while cooking sweets and substitute Ghee with a healthy Oil. What you need to understand is that you cannot make such changes and complain of the flavor. If you are avoiding any dish for health reason then either you do not make it altogether or make it only once in a while, but do not substitute Ghee or Sugar. Using the right quantity of ghee will also give your halwa the right texture.

There are few things to remember while making besan ka halwa.The Besan flour needs to be sifted through a sieve, to make sure that there are no lumps. Besan flour has tendency to clump up into mounds, so make sure it is a fine flour. The Besan tends to burn easily, therefore the roasting needs to be monitored at all times, while you saute’e and roast the besan.

Besan ka Halwa is more regularly made during winters. My Grandmother and Mother and My Mother in law always say that Hot or warm served besan Halwa is great during winters specially because it keeps our body warm and also is soothing when you suffer from cold and congestion. I also feel that Autumn brings in ,more Orangish and Golden foods, specially the sweets, Pumpkin pies, Apple pies and Besan Halwa. This moreish halwa redolent with fragrant ghee, saffron and dry fruits is perfect for celebrations or any time you crave a sweet treat. So, make it and Enjoy!!!

Gulbahar

This is a fusion dish which was made specially for Eid-ul -Adha of 2020. I wanted to come up with something different other than the regular desserts that I make and a fusion idea felt like something new and different.

Now, the basic thing for any fusion dish is that the flavors you fuse together should be able to maintain a balance. They should be flavorful, but the flavor cannot overpower one another and the most important thing that I feel is that if you eat the dish with your eyes closed, you should be able to tell the names of the dishes [if you have tasted them before] or at least be able to differ between them while savoring each bite.

This dish is made with Khoya seviyyan, Rabri and Gulab Jamun. The name is a given by my youngest sister in law who suggested the name after looking at the pictures of the dish and I feel it couldn’t have had a better name. All three dishes are made separately and put together. The recipe for each dish is available on this site.

The sweet dishes can be made well in advance and can be put together at the day of the party.

Dalia Sooji Laddu

Laddus don’t need an occasion, it just tends to make the day special when you make them. Have you ever noticed the expressions of your little ones running around the kitchen and making excuses to keep tasting the boora while you are still in the middle of making those laddus. The excitement and happiness makes me even happier making these little balls of delight.

I make different kinds of laddus and its always easier to add or change something while you are still making them and that’s the reason I find them an easier sweet dish to experiment with than the other sweets.

This particular recipe is my family favorite. This is made from Chane ka Dalia, which is healthy and tastes super delicious.

Malai Chum Chum

Bengali sweets happen to be one of the best sweets in India. They offer a wide variety from Rasgullas to Mishti Doi and most people who like Indian sweets always love these sweet sugar dipped treats.

Malai Chum Chum is a very popular Bengali sweet made with Paneer or homemade Cottage Cheese. It is a delicious Indian dessert that cannot be resisted since they are amazingly delicious to look at and delectable. These chum chums are soaked in sugar syrup and in between are filled with rich and creamy Khoya filling.

Mr. Parveez loves Malai Chumchum and he would always buy them from his favorite Indian sweet shop here. There were few other ones as well and he loved them all. Few years  back we moved houses and we went pretty far from the area of our favorite Indian area. So, the visits to the sweet shop weren’t as frequent and Mr. Parveez though deprived never complained and neither did he ever ask me to try.

Actually there is a funny story to him asking too. As a newly married wife, every now and then I would try to make dishes that we have tried at different restaurants. I still don’t know why I did that, probably just wanted to amaze my husband …LOLzzz. But instead of impressing him, he asked me to stop. The problem was that making the dishes we eat at restaurant would be close to what we eat outside, but the charm of enjoying a meal outside would be lost. So, as much as I wanted to try making some of these sweets, I would not attempt and just get the sweets from the sweets store whenever we would be in that area. Few years ago we moved to our new house, and the house is pretty far for us to visit that sweet store as often as we would like to, and the closest Indian market does not sell sweets of the same quality unless we buy frozen and we all know frozen loses the taste.

And that’s how I decided to make my own. Initially when I started making Rasgullas because that makes a base for all the bengali sweets, or most of them. The Rasgullas need a little tactic that makes sure they are spongy and can absorb the sweetness from the sugar syrup. That’s the first thing you need to master and as easy as the recipe looks and seems, they aren’t that easy. It took me around 5 trials to master them.

For Malai Chumchum, make rasgullas and once done have to be cut into half and add khoya mix . The middle part is khoya mixed with sugar and a little spice to enhance flavors. You can always a little bit of food color to make the dish look nicer. Garnish with silver leaf and crushed nuts.

You can always make them 4-5 days in advance. Refrigerate and serve chilled.

Maave Ki Kachori

Jodhpur, my beautiful hometown and land of sweetness and colorful people. One of the most popular sweet is Maave ki Kachori. The crunchy outer crust and slightly sweet inside dipped in the sugar syrup.

For Mr. Parveez it was love at first sight or love at first bite. He enjoyed it so much that every Jodhpur visit, Maave Ki Kachori was a must and if we had any one coming over, we would ask them to get it for us, which I would fry again and pour some warm sugar syrup on it ans serve. As much as we would appreciate the pain people would go through to bring/send these awesome sweets to us, but the only problem was that staying without refrigeration for so long would spoil the taste a little and we wouldn’t be able to enjoy more that 25%. So, with time, we had to give up on that.

The best Maava Kachori according the polls is made by Raawat sweet store and I once happened to have a few guests over , out of which one has been to Jodhpur and has tried maava Kachori from that sweet store. I was truly honored when the guest told me that mine would win if there was a competition. Its always great to receive compliments from my boys and as much as I know that they are honest when it comes to food, I still believe they appreciate my efforts at times and never complain if the dish hasn’t come out great.

And then finally one day I decided to try my own. Before I write the whole recipe, let me tell you this…I have never eaten or tried Maave Ki Kachori. I am just few of those “weirdos” who do not enjoy sweets made with sugar syrup and therefore when the thought came to my mind, it was actually an arrow in the dark. What I knew was that the filling has Khoya and nuts and slight taste of some spices.  The biggest blessing is to have a husband who has amazing taste buds and therefore, it was easy to have him try the filling before I finalize it.

The first attempt had too much spice and it was hard to taste the khoya and sweetness. The second try had too little spice. The third one was perfect since I understood how and what to do. The khoya needs to have a little bit of clove but suggest that they shouldn’t be powdered and they should be mixed as is in the pan while cooking khoya and should be taken out leaving the flavor. Besides, cloves, its cardamom powder, cinnamon powder and Nutmeg powder.

When you start cooking the Khoya would melt in the pan and that’s good since it makes it easier to blend it with flavor of spices, and when it cools down, it automatically solidifies again. Sugar should be mixed only once its taken off the pan.

Dil Kulfi

Kulfi is well known Indian Ice cream.  Kulfi or Qulfi is an Indian word derived from the Persian word “Qufli” meaning “covered cup”.  The dessert likely originated from the Mughals. From the history I read, I found that it made to one of the most popular deserts in the Mughal Empire in the 16th century.

The mixture of dense evaporated milk was already popular in the sweet dishes in the Indian subcontinent. During the Mughal period, this mixture was flavored with pistachios and saffron, packed into metal cones and immersed in slushed ice, resulting in the invention of Kulfi.

Ain-e- Akbari, a detailed record of the Mughal emperor  Akbar’s administration, mentions use of saltpeter for refrigeration as well as transportation of Himalayan ice to warmer areas.

Kulfi has similarities to ice cream in appearance and taste; however being dense, its more filling and the flavors are more pretentious. It comes in various flavours. The more traditional ones are cream/ malai, rose/Gulab, Cardamom/ Elaichi, Mango, saffron/ zaffran and pistachio. There are newer variations such as apple, orange, strawberry, peanut, and avocado. Unlike ice cream, kulfi is not whipped, resulting in a solid, dense frozen dessert similar to traditional custard-based ice cream. Thus, it is sometimes considered a distinct category of frozen dairy-based dessert. Due to its density, kulfi takes a longer time to melt than Western ice cream.

My hometown has a very old shop that has been making and serving Kulfis for over 300 years. People still believe it to be the best frozen desert we get in my hometown. Its popularly known as Marwari Kulfi and is loved by people of all ages. During my childhood, there were Kulfi vendors who sold Kulfi in a cart. They were popularly known as “Kulfiwala” and would sell cylinder shaped long kulfis on a stick, that were taken out of a metal mold, or small earthen pots that were all kept in a mix of ice and salt.

Kulfi is traditionally prepared by evaporating sweetened and flavored milk by slow cooking. It needs to be constantly stirred, making sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. A little sticking to the pan would leave the milk with a burnt smell, that is impossible to take out, therefore one has to be careful. The best trick I use for that is adding a cup of cold water in the bottom of the pan before adding milk. Also keeping the flame to low or medium helps as well.  The milk has to be cooked till  its volume is reduced by half,  thickening it, increasing its fat, protein, and lactose density.

It has a distinctive taste due to caramelizing  of lactose and sugar during the lengthy cooking process, while adding your favorite flavor to it. The semi-condensed mix is then frozen in tight sealed molds that are then submerged in ice mixed with salt to speed up the freezing process. The ice/salt mix, along with its submerged kulfi moulds, is placed in a kulhar/ small matka which is an earthen pot that provides insulation from the external heat and slows down the melting of ice.  Kulfi, thus prepared by slow freezing, also renders a unique smooth mouth feel that is devoid of ice crystals.

An easier version is to boil the milk and add bread crumbs, mawa (dried whole milk), and sugar while stirring. The cream layer formed on the boiling milk is scooped initially and added in the end to thicken the milk. More recently Kulfi is prepared from evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk and heavy  cream. Then sugar is added and the mixture is further boiled and cornstarch mixed in water paste is added. This paste thickens the mixture, although it is boiled for an additional few minutes. Then flavors are then added. The mixture is then cooled, put in molds and frozen.

It needs to freeze for 8-10 hours. Take it out 5-7 minutes before serving. If the edges do not loosen up, you can add the molds to water for 2-3 minutes and take the kulfi out of the molds. It can be served by itself or with vermicelli/ Falooda.

So, this special kulfi is a 4 layer flavor of Rose, malai, Pista and Figs. I put layers of all flavors together in a heart [ Dil ] shaped mold, heance came up with the name. Decorating it with nuts, silver leaf and rose syrup.