Tapioca Halwa

Yesterday being Janmashtami, I wanted to prepare some new sweet that I had not tried eating or making earlier. I had got this tapioca for dosa making and it came handy in my halwa making. Kundan is fond of Thirunelvelli halwa and keeps prodding me to try it at home, but I was too skeptical for the effort and knack it demands. Surprisingly, the tapioca halwa reminded us in taste and texture the wheat halwa. I have now earned some confidence through this to venture into making the actual ‘irrutu kadai halwa’… Ok, now about this tapioca halwa, it is pretty simple and yumm. I won’t cheat you calling it a healthy one though ;) After all it ate some sugar and is flab-ed with ghee.

Serves:  2

Preparation Time:  5 minutes

Cooking Time:  20 minutes

Ingredients:

1.      Tapioca (Maravallikizhangu) – half a foot long

2.    Ghee – 4 tbsp

3.    Sugar – ½ cup

4.    Kesar color – 1 pinch (optional)

5.     Cardamom powder – ¼ tsp

6.    Milk – few tbsp

Method:

Step 1: Wash, cut the tapioca into 2 or 3 pieces and boil for at least 6 whistles.

Step 2: Peel the cooked tapioca skin and chop it roughly into small bits.

Step 3: Grind it using a mixer jar or mash using potato masher but generally it has fiber and is hard so grinding is a better option. While mashing use some milk if it is lacking moisture.

Step 4: Heat a spoon of ghee and roast cashew nuts in it, drain and keep aside.

Step 5: In the same ghee add the mashed tapioca, add milk dissolved kesar color to it and keep cooking by stirring constantly until it doesn't stick if held between fingers.

Step 6: Add sugar and cardamom powder and mix well; in few minutes the halwa turns glossy and glassy.

Step 7: Start adding ghee spoon by spoon, at a stage it stops absorbing ghee and then it is done.

Step 8: Mix the fried cashew nuts and turn off heat.

Step 9: Serve the melt-in mouth hot tapioca halwa.

Praline

Praline for me was an accidental discovery. I was trying to prepare taagar/ bura for urad ladoos but I had mistakenly added less water than required; hence turned darker. I can pat my back for the presence of mind to add some butter and melon seeds to transform my blunder into a sweet outcome.

Serves:  NA

Preparation Time:  NA

Cooking Time:  15 minutes

Ingredients:

1.      Sugar – 1 cup

2.    Water – ¼ cup

3.    Melon seeds – 2 tbsp (can be substituted by almonds or peanuts or so )

4.    Butter – 1 tbsp

Method:

Step 1: Mix sugar and water and heat it by constantly stirring it.

Step 2: The sugar dissolves, then thickens and then turns into honey colour.

Step 3: At this stage, butter and melon seeds to it and turn off heat.

Step 4: Stir well and pour immediately into a butter greased plate or tray to about 1/8^th on an inch’s thickness. Slightly thicker is ok, just that it takes more time to solidify.

Step 5: Once it comes to room temperature, remove the praline using a knife tip or back of the spoon or fork.

Step 6: Store it in an airtight container until use, preferably use it within a week.

Step 7: This can be relished just as we do candies or can be crushed and dressed on ice-creams or milkshakes or garnished on desserts.

Ada Pradhaman

Ada Pradhaman is equivalent to paayasam or kheer in Kerala. Kundan had tasted it from one of his colleagues and was craving to have it again. Unfortunately I couldn't find from my local grocers, the readymade ‘ada’ which is a main ingredient for this dessert. Amma had got it from Pondicherry sometime back and I finally attempted this simple version of ada pradhaman. Traditionally the ada itself is made at home as and when required and prepared with coconut milk which I'll try and share shortly.

Serves:  5

Preparation Time:  15 minutes

Cooking Time:  30 minutes

Ingredients:

1.      Ada – ½ cup

2.    Sugar – 1 cup

3.    Milk – 3 cups

4.    Coconut chopped – 3 tbsp

5.     Cashew nuts – 10

6.    Raisins – a fistful

7.     Cardamom powder – ¼ tsp

8.    Ghee – 2 tbsp

Method:

Step 1: Boil the milk in simmered stove by stirring occasionally until it thickens well.

Step 2: Heat ghee in a tawa and fry ada, cashew nuts, raisins and coconut one by one and keep them aside.

Step 3: Add the fried ada to the boiling milk and cook it until the ada is soft by stirring occasionally.

Step 4: When the ada is cooked well, they float on the surface; check if it is soft till center and then add sugar and cook for another 5 minutes. Turn off heat.

Step 5: Stir in cardamom powder, fried cashew nuts, raisins and serve hot or warm or even chilled.

Mango Phirni

The other day Kundan came home describing about a divinely dessert, maampazha koozh that one of his colleagues had brought for lunch. The very next day my parents had come home with so many ripen mangoes and so he wanted me to try that recipe. I tried browsing for the recipe with the ‘maampazha koozh’ and related keywords but din’t find anything matching; alternatively I happened to hit this ‘mango phirni’ recipe and tried it. I could not appreciate it much as I was expecting something like a mango mousse but what turned out was something like a mango rabadi. Kundan liked it though and surprisingly even his colleagues seemed to have liked it.

Serves: 5

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1.     Ripe mangoes – 3

2.     Raw rice – ½ cup

3.     Milk maid – ½ a tin or more as per taste.

4.     Milk – 2 cups

5.     Cardamom powder – 1 pinch

6.     Cashew nuts chopped – 2 tbsp

Method:

Step 1: Soak rice in water for few hours and grind it into a smooth paste.

Step 2: Peel, chop and puree the mangoes.

Step 3: Boil milk and add rice paste to it by stirring continuously.

Step 4: Once the milk thickens well, add milkmaid to it and then the mango puree. Stir well until it comes to boil.

Step 5: Turn off heat and add cardamom powder and stir well.

Step 6: Let it cool down and then refrigerate it.

Step 7: Serve garnished with chopped cashew nuts.

Urad Dal Ladoo

Urad dal as we know is good for health and very strengthening especially for girls during puberty and for women during pregnancy. I tried this recipe from nishamadhulika.com first time when I had visited my sister during her pregnancy. All of us loved it and I had made it many times after that, thanks to Nishamadhulika. In north India there is a habit of making these kinds of healthy ladoos when winter arrives to keep the body warm unlike we in south make sweets only during festivities or for occasions.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes

Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Serves: Yields 20-25 ladoos

Ingredients:

1.     Urad dal – 2 cups

2.     Bura or tagar – 1 ½ cups

3.     Ghee – 1 cup

4.     Cahew nuts – 4 tbsp

Method:

Step 1: Roast the urad dal in simmer until done and nice aroma emanates. Let it cool down.

Step 2: Grind the urad dal in a mixer to get a slightly coarse flour.

Step 3: Melt ghee, add chopped nuts and urad flour to it. Mix tagar or bura to it and mix well.

Step 4: Roll into ladoos between your fists.

TIPS:

*Check for the tagar or bura recipe from Besan ladoo recipe in this blog.

*You can add cardamom powder if you do not like urad flavour.

*Add nuts of your choice along with cashew nuts.

*Adjust sweetness and ghee according to taste.

*If you live in cold weather, heat the ladoo in microwave while serving to get the ghee melted and be flavourful.

*If the bura or tagar has lumps pulse it in the mixer.

Soyabean Laddu

I have not made sweets for sometime now and thought of trying soyabean laddu whose recipe is an adaptation from nishamadhulika.com. I had tried besan laddu and urad laddu earlier from this site which everyone in the family liked so I wanted to use up the soybean I had for this recipe. Coincidentally there was this local dessert contest for which my neighbor recommended this and it got critical acclaims but didn’t win for lack of glamour. 

Serves: You get approx. 25 laddus

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1.       Soybean – 1 ½ cups

2.      Wheat flour – 1 ½ cups

3.      Sugar – 1 ¼ cup

4.      Chopped nuts – ¼ cup

5.      Cardamom powder – ¼ tsp

6.      Milk – 1 tbsp

Method:

Step 1: Prepare tagar or bura by the following method and keep aside in advance:

a.      Take sugar and ½ cup of water in a pan, switch on heat and keep stirring until it starts bubbling.

b.      Add a teaspoon of sugar and tablespoon of milk and continue stirring until you see a snow like ring on the borders. When you see it, turn off heat.

c.       But keep stirring continuously to get a porous powder called bura or tagar; this might take about 5-10 minutes.

Step 2: Dry roast the soybean and after it cools down grind to coarse flour in mixer or you can use soybean atta if you’ve.

Step 3: Melt the ghee in a pan and roast the both soybean flour and wheat flour in it till it turn brownish and beautiful aroma emanates. Let it cool down a bit.

 

 

Step 4: When the flour-mixture is warm, add sugar, chopped nuts, cardamom powder to it and mix well. Add more melted ghee if required.

Step 5: Take about a couple of heaped tablespoons of laddu mix and press and roll tightly into laddu. Repeat for the entire mixture.