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| Khajur Phirni (Pudding made from Powdered Rice and Dates) |
Let me admit this at the very outset that I have a sweet tooth and I can't help myself from indulging in sweet dishes every now and then. The last few weeks, I have had quite a few kitchen exploits, especially in preparing some delectable desserts - the prominent ones being Gajar Ka Halwa, Shahi Kheer, Kalakand and Seviyan Kheer. This evening too I had a strong craving for eating something sweet and so I thought of preparing Phirni. Back in Bhubaneswar, mummy had prepared the dish on Sankranti last week and having heard from her about it, I was having a strong urge to prepare it myself. I also thought of experimenting a bit by using dates. It came out really good and tasted heavenly.
Ingredients:
Full Cream Milk - 1 Litre
Basmati Rice - 1/4 cup
Dates - 3-4 lumps
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Saffron - 10-12 strands (to be soaked in warm milk)
Crushed Green Cardamoms - about 1/2 teaspoon
Dry Fruits (Pistachios, Almonds and cashew nuts) - about 8-10 each
Method:
To start with, wash the rice thoroughly to clean it of all impurities and after draining out all water, let it to dry by spreading the grains over a dry, clean muslin cloth or paper.
Once they dry up, grind them into a somewhat coarse powder - they shouldn't be grounded to a fine powder, they should rather be a litle grainy, like semolina or rava.
Now taking the milk in a non-stick pan, bring it to boil while stirring it continuously every now and then, over medium flame. It would approximately take about seven to eight minutes.
But while the milk is still warm and not reached the boiling point, take out about 2 tablespoons into a small bowl and mash the saffron strands in the milk and leave them to get soaked. In a few minutes, the saffron strands will soften up and the colour of the solution will change to light yellow. This is to be used later.
Now take a lump of the dates and using a little water, make a fine paste. Keep aside.
Soak the almond pieces in water so that their skin will come off easily and they can then be sliced into thinner pieces to be used for garnishing.
Once the milk in the sauce pan starts boiling, lower the flame and slowly add the powdered rice into it while stirring continuously. Otherwise lumps might form. After a while add the date paste that we had prepared into the mixture and mix them all.
After about 20 minutes of cooking, the milk will reduce considerably and the rice along with the dates would have been nicely cooked. That would be the time to stir in sugar and so also the saffron-milk solution.
Follow the above step with addition of chopped dry fruits (pistachios, almonds and cashew nuts) and the green cardamom powder.
Keep the phirni over low heat for another 2 or 3 minutes before turning off the heat.
Then leave it to cool down, first at the room temperature and then by keeping it inside the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
One can garnish it with some more dry fruits before serving.
P.S. Sweet & Spicy (www.sweetnspicy.in) is my to-be-launched food blog.
