Tuesday, March 31, 2015

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.


Sunday, March 29, 2015

First One

Hello beautiful hearts  <3
How is the juggling of life going on?
As this is my first blog, formally I should introduce the person typing this right now and this which is being typed right now! Uh? That`s me and my blog!!!!
I am simple, down to earth and often confused person out there. I am no genius and no celebrity at all, I maybe like the next door neighbor, the first bencher at school who moved to the last bench by high school. I may be like any of you who have a beautiful heart ready to be explored. That brings me to the reason I want to blog and reach out to friends.
Friends-a very special relation in each of our lives.
With this blog I hope to share life experiences. I also look at this personal blog as a channel to carry my thoughts out through the locked door...
Have a Good day and God bless:):):)

XOXO