My Culinary Trial Room

Monday, August 29, 2011

Rava Kesari

Imagine you with closed eyes, someone sliding a spoonful of rava kesari with some crunchy toasted nuts and a nice sweet ghee aroma filling your nose. The kesari once into your mouth just melts into a flavorful nothingness. Oh I know many out there would die for this experience. Rich rava kesari is an all time yes-yes for me.

I usually cut down as much ghee/oil as I can from our diet. And that repeats on festivals too. My hand actually does this on it own accord. I don't add more than 1tbsp of oil for stir fry and 2 tbsp for shallow fry and don't even start about deep frying :( The family knows very well about me. So when I called up my mom to ask on how to make kesari, she asked me to hand over the phone to Mr.A. Confused, he got the phone from me and then there was laughter n silence followed by laughter again. It was my turn to be confused and I was given the phone. I got the recipe from my mom, asked her wat the fuss was about for which I got a "U will see soon" answer and then a bye.

I knew tat asking my huss would just be shouting into deaf ears and hence went into the kitchen silently. Was taken back to see Mr.A following me (a rare thing that has happened say twice or thrice previously). Again confused, I started with the kesari and when it was time to tip in the ghee, I understood wat their conversation really meant. In a matter of seconds, he grabbed the ghee bottle from me and poured nearly 6 tsps of ghee into the kesari. I started yelling and jumping "have u gone mad???" It was then that he explained that my mom had asked HIM to add in the ghee, frightened that I would not add in as much needed and the recipe would fail. Gosh, I didn't know people were so much frightened with me and my oil adventures..
But then the episode was fruitful and I loved the loads of ghee flavor coming out. This is how a kesari is meant to be!!! Lesson Learnt...

~*What U Need*~
Sooji / Semolina / Rava – ½ cup
Sugar – 1 cup
Water – 1 ½ cups + ½ cup
Food color – a pinch
Ghee – 6 tsps + 1 tsp
Broken Cashews + dried grapes - 10

How I Made it:
Dry roast the semolina with 1 tsp of ghee till golden brown and u get a nice aroma. Boil 1 ½ + ½*see notes* cups of water till you see bubbles coming up. Now add the food color and stir well till evenly dispersed. Next add in the semolina and keep stirring till it is half done (My tip: wait till the white spots of the sooji fade away).
Add the sugar and mix well. When the sugar has melted and combined well and the kesari is well cooked, add the ghee to it. You will see that the sweet does not stick to the pan now.
Fry the cashews and grapes in ghee, add this to the kesari and combine well.

Serve hot or cool down and cut into pieces with a cashew on top of each piece.

My Notes:
If you feel that the kesari is too thick, then boil the extra 1/2 cup of water and add this to the mixture as soon as you have added the water. The consistency is totally up to you. I had to add the extra 1/2 cup to get a semi-runny consistency.

This is the final recipe of my gokulashtami platter... Hope you guys enjoyed all my recipes.

So thats it Folks...
With Love,