Sheer Khurma - An Eid delight!

Whenever I hear "Eid Mubarak" I picture the sheerkhurma next and voila, after a little chat with the relatives here it comes. Green, white, brown, saffron all vibrant colors floating around in ivory and oh, the slow but charming fragrance filling my nose, my lungs and my heart. I can feel my tongue salivating already.
I am sure many of you would share this feeling.
Eid and Sheerkhurma have made a bond since traditions especially in Indian muslim houses.
I did not find much ado of it in middle east or the US.
Here like other celebrations, On Eid day, people are welcomed with sweets.

As you know, I am not a fan of sweet products, but i always look forward to this treat.

So wherever I am, I make some of it during Eid. This makes the day complete.

So lets see how we prepare this bowl of goodness...
(You will have to start preparation at least 2 days before the date you want to serve this.)

RECIPE:

You will need:
50 gms almond
80 gms cashews
50 gms pistachio
30 gms charoli/chironji
            Try to get in Indian stores or in the bakala(middle east). In case not available in your location,             you can leave it out.
1/4 tsp saffron
50 gms raisins(must not be sour)
2 litre milk
1 cup sugar
1 tsp cardomom seeds powder
2 tbsp ghee
1/2 cup vermicelli

Directions:

1. Soak almond overnight. When soft, drain water. Peel and cut them into thin strips.Spread on a plate and let it dry. 
2. Soak pistachio and cashew for around 3 hours. Peel pistachio. Cut cashew and pistachio into thin strips and spread them till dry.                                                    
3. Soak the charoli/chironji for an hour, then peel them. discard skin. This takes more time because the size is very small. Spread on a surface to dry.In case you do not get charoli, you may skip this or use pine nuts.
4. Once these dry fruits are dry, we need to roast them.In a pan take 2 tsp of ghee, heat and then add the dry fruits. Keep stirring till a nice aroma is sensed.
5. Take out on a plate and let it cool. You can make till here few days before and store in air tight container. 
6. Heat ghee till it melts in a pot. Add the vermicelli and roast till it is slightly brown. Add raisins.
7. Add the dry fruits and roast for a minute. You should be able to see that the raisin have blown in size.
8. Add milk slowly, stirring it along.
9. Keep stirring till it boils, then reduce flame.
10. Add sugar, keep stirring. Mix in cardomom powder and saffron.
11. Boil this till the milk reduces by 1/4th amount.
12. Serve it in bowls.

A tip:
You can even add evaporated milk. If you would want to add condensed milk, be sure to reduce the sugar initially.

If you like a little more flavor and color, Add chopped fresh dates or dry dates powder when you add milk.

So try it and let me know in comments if you liked it. Suggestions are always welcome.

China Grass Pudding (Ghaas ka Halwa).

China Grass Pudding or Agar agar pudding (Ghaas ka Halwa) recipe.

Mr. Right has a sweet tooth, and I am not a fan of sugar.

Thus I try to make desserts that are mildly sweet and still give the satisfaction of a yummy sweet dish.

Thus on a day before weekend, I was thinking of a dessert after dinner. We usually like to have some nice slow munches while watching a movie post supper on a weekend night.

I tried to picture the sweet stuff I love and at the very first I saw Ice cream.

I love icecream. What might make this sweet dish so appealing to me? May be that it is chilled..

Sweet and Chilled...Sweet and chilled yes and it would be nice to have an easy one...

So then my mind pictured the China Grass pudding. My mom used to make them, and I would like to eat them...

This is usually a no miss Iftaar dish during Ramadan in many Muslim houses.

So lets get making-

Here is the Recipe..

Ingredients required:

¹/₂ litre milk (full fat preferred).

¹/₂ cup agar agar(cut the long stems into small pieces or take ¹/₃ cup powder).

1 cup water.

4 tbsp sugar.

food color (as per choice).

vanilla essence (or 1 tsp grounded cardamon powder).

chopped dry fruits or saffron.

Directions:

1. Soak agar agar in 1 cup water for 30 minutes or more.
2. Start heating the milk till it boils. Add sugar and stir.
3. Meanwhile in separate pan heat the agar agar with water till it dissolves completely.
4. When the milk boils add agar agar and keep stirring
5. Reduce flame to medium. Keep stirring and simmer for 5 min.
6. Add color and essence.
7. Remove from flame but keep stirring in intervals.
8. When it is a lukewarm, take around 12inch pan and pour into it.
9. Garnish with dry fruits or saffron.
10. Freeze for 30 minutes or till it is set.
11. Cut the pudding vertically and horizontally to get square shapes or diagonally for diamond shapes.
12. Serve chilled and Enjoy.

Small Variation Big Effects:

1.

Instead of essence and color (Step6) we can add Rooh Afza ( a drink concentrate from hamdard) for a nice pink tint and Rose fragnance.
Here you may use any other fruit drink concentrate, but I would say use only the ones which are sweet.
But you can always experiment,better to add the flavor after removing from heat.

2.
Another style i found out that makes it look more presentable and high class is giving it layers....
For this we will need colored gelatin.
I have used Jell-O strawberry flavor.
And to give a contrast, I added green color to my pudding mix.

So here I made the china grass pudding as I normally would.
When I keep it for cooling (step 7), I mixed  a small amount of gelatin as per instruction on the packet i.e. Add boiling water to the gelatin and stir to dissolve. then add cool water.
When lukewarm, I poured this on top of the pudding.(After step 8).
Garnish if you want with dry fruits or leave as it is.

In case you have a fix number of guests coming up, you can set your pudding in small serving bowls and directly place for dessert.

Do let me know in the comments if you tried and liked it. Suggestions are always welcome.