Badam Sweets/Almond Sweets

I am very much impressed by the almond sweet recipe by sridevi of Jiboomba. She has a fantastic blog with variety of recipes. Do visit her's for the wonderful recipes. I could not resist or postpone trying it. Though i could not get the red color, it really tastes awesome. Here goes the recipe.

 

Ingredients

• Almonds - 2 cups
• Sugar - 1 cup (Can be adjusted according to your taste)
• Powdered sugar/Icing sugar - 3 to 5 tsp
• Milk - 3/4th cup
• Red Colour - 1 to 2 pinch
• Green Colour - less than a pinch
• Ghee - 2 to 3 tsp (as needed)

Method

• Soak the almonds overnight or 2 hrs in hot water.
• Peel the skin and grind in the blender to a smooth paste by adding milk.
• In a wide pan, add the almond paste, sugar and stir well, so that water content evoporates.
• When the paste becomes thick, add the red colour and before adding save a 2 to 3 tsp of paste to mix the green colour.
• Let the paste cool down and after cooling, make into small ball shapes by adding ghee in your palm while rolling it.
• Now roll over the balls on the powdered sugar.
• Now with the green coloured paste, shape it into leaves or stem and arrange correctly on top of the balls.
• Almond sweet is ready to be served.

    

Kaara Boondhi

Ingredients

• Kadalai Maavu/Besan Flour - 1.5 cup
• Water - as required to make the flour like a batter
• Oil - for frying
• Groundnut/peanuts - a handful
• Curry leaves - a handful
• Salt - for taste
• Chilli powder - 1 tsp ( or as you need for spiciness)

Method

• In a big bowl, add the flour and little water, first and mix well, in order to remove the lumps formed.
• After all lumps removed, add 1 tsp oil and some more water so that, it becomes a batter. (little thinner than idli batter form)
• Now in a kadai, pour enough oil and heat it on medium flame.
• In a Jalli Karandi (laddle with holes), pour 1 to 2 tsp of batter in a tsp and slowly rotate it circular motion, so that the batter gets poured like a small balls.

• Fry them, till ligh golden colour and immediately take them out from oil and filter with a kitchen towel.

• Fry the  curry leaves and peanuts and mix them with the boondhi.

• Sprinkle the salt and chilli powder over it and mix well.
• Can be stored for more than a week, if stored in a airtight container.

Sending this to Diwali sweets and snacks by Lavi

Rasmalai

I made Rasmalai, from my Rasgulla's whose recipe i posted in my last post. To view it, click here.
Now comes the Rasmalai Recipe.

Ingredients

• Rasgulla's - 10
• Milk - 1/2 litre
• Custard powder - 1 tsp (optional)
• Cardamom - 3 (crushed)
• Sugar - 1/2 cup
• Saffron - few strands
• Almond flakes - few
• Pista flakes - few

Method

• Boil the milk till it becomes half its quantity.
• Add the sugar and stir well.
• Before the milk gets thicken, take 5 tsp of milk and mix with 1 tsp of custard powder. (optional step)
• Now add this to the boiling milk to make it thicken fast. (optional step)
• Add the crushed cardomom and few strands of saffron.
• Allow it to cool and keep in fridge.

• Meanwhile, take the rasgulla's, slightly squeeze it, make it slightly flatten and place it on the plate or bowl.
• Now pour the thickened milk(Rabdi) on the rasgulla's.
• Sprinkle the remaining saffron, badam flakes, pista flakes(i dont have pista while doing) on it.
• Delicious Rasmalai is ready and serve cool.

Sending this to the following wonderful events
1. CMT - Mithai by Mina Joshi and Jagruthi
2. Celebrate Sweets - Bengali sweets by PJ and Nivedita
3. Diwali sweets and snacks by Lavi

Rasgulla

I made Rasgulla and Rasmalai for this Deepawali. Though i know the procedure, i didnt try out at home, as i thought i need to do it with muslin or cheese cloth only. But after seeing the Rasgulla's from Rajeshwari's Raks Kitchen, i could not postpone trying them out. She made the rasgulla's with her dhupatta itself and it inspired me a lot. Believe it or not, i made the rasgulla's with white cotton Kerchief and it came out well.

Here goes the recipe....

Ingredients

• Milk - 1 litre
• Lemon juice/Vinegar - 3 tsp
• Sugar - 2 cups
• Cardamom - 3 (crushed) (optional)
• Water - 6 cups

Method

• Boil the milk.
• With lemon juice / Vinegar add 2 tsp of water and dilute it.
• While the milk is boiling, add the diluted vinegar and mix well.
• Stir the boiling milk so that the milk starts curdling.
• Keep on stirring, till the water separates fully from the milk.
• With the help of the metal strainer, covered with Cheese/Muslin/Cotton Dhuppatta/Cotton Kerchief filter the curdled milk, under the running water.
• Wash it well to remove the smell of vinegar/lemon juice.
• Now cover the curdled milk with kerchief and just twist as much as you can in order to remove the water from it. 

• If the water didnt strain fully, just fill the cooker or heavy bottom pan with water and keep this on the Curdled milk covered with cloth.
• Leave it for 30 to 40 min.

• Meanwhile, make sugar syrup with 1 cup sugar, 2 cup water and cardamom (no need for string consistency). Just make the syrup, till the sugar dissolves.
• Keep this syrup in fridge.

• Now remove the paneer from it and smash well till it becomes like a dough to make small balls.
• Now in a pressure cooker, add 1 cup sugar and 4 cup water and bring to boil.

• Add the paneer balls into it and close the lid. Wait for 1 whistle and make the burner to low flame. Leave it for 7 to 10 minutes and switch off the stove.

• Remove the Rasgullas and transfer it to the cooled sugar syrup and serve it.

[Note: Since i planned to make rasmalai also with these rasgulla's, i made two sugar syrup as i dont want the rasgulla's to be too sweet for rasmalai. So you can use the sugar syrup that is used to pressure cook the rasgulla's by adding one more cup of sugar to it. Then cool the rasgullas by refridgerating them and serve cool]

Sending this to the following wonderful events
1. CMT - Mithai by Mina Joshi and Jagruthi
2. Celebrate Sweets - Bengali sweets by PJ and Nivedita
3. Diwali Sweets n Snacks by Lavi

Happy Deepawali

அனைவருக்கும் என் இனிய தீபாவளி நல்வாழ்த்துகள் 

Happy Deepawali to you and your family