Rava Kesari

Tags

easy Indian desserts, how to make rava kesari, how to make rava kesari restaurant style, Indian Sweets, Rava Kesari, soft rava kesari, sooji recipes, sooji sheera, south Indian sweets

Rava kesari/Sooji Sheera is one of the easiest and yummiest Indian sweet which can be prepared very quick. Whenever I need to prepare some sweet as neivedhyam for pooja specially in the mornings ,this is my first choice. You can make a lot of variations in this with fruits. You can use Mango/Banana to get the extra punch 😉 For my earlier post on Mango Kesari, check here.

Ingredients:

Rava/Semolina/Sooji : 1 cup

Water : 4 cups

Sugar : 1 cup

Ghee : 1 1/2 tablespoon

Dry fruits(cashews, raisins) : few

Kesari food color/Red food color : a pinch (optional)

Saffron strands : Few (I haven’t used)

Method:

• Heat 1/2 tablespoon of ghee, when hot roast cashews first. Next add raisins when it pops, remove and set aside.
• In the same pan, roast rava/sooji for 2 to 3 mins, until nice aroma rises. Do not over roast, set aside.
• Now heat water in a large pan. Add the food color, saffron strands if using. Let it get heated well.
• Now mix the roasted rava and continuously stir.
• Rava will absorb all the water, make sure it gets cooked really well.
• Now add sugar and mix.
• Sugar will leave out water. Keep stirring. Add ghee as well.
• Mix and in a bowl grease some ghee, pour this rava kesari and mix the dry fruits.

It gets thicker by time. 4 cups of water gives perfect soft kesari. I usually use 1 cup rava and 2 cup water, which makes it feel very dry when stored later. 4 cups water ratio works wonder and it stays real soft after long hours.

2 cups water and 2 cups milk can also be used. Food color is totally optional.

Advertisement

Pumpkin Kheer/ Parangikai Payasam

Tags

Carrot Kheer, Indian Sweets, Jaggery Sweets, Parangikai Kheer, Parangikai Payasam, Pumpkin Kheer, Red Pumpkin Kheer

I love carrot kheer and I often prepare it. This time I had got a huge red pumpkin and I had to finish it off 😛 So instead of carrot, tried it with pumpkin and it turned out just similar to carrot kheer and loved it 🙂 Do give it a try friends. I learnt carrot kheer from the video of Varevah chef and the same I have applied here. Varevah chef uses sugar, but I use Jaggery for most of my desserts 🙂

Ingredients:

Red/yellow Pumpkin/ Parangikai : 6 to 7 inch piece.

Milk : 3 cups

Ghee/ Clarified butter : 2 tablespoons

Cardamom : 2 cloves

Almond and cashews : 5 each

Palm candy/Jaggery/Vellam : 1/4 cup

To Garnish:

Ghee /Clarified Butter : 1 teaspoon

Almond, Cashews, raisins : handful

Method:

• Peel the skin of the pumpkin and chop them to pieces.
• Add 1/2 cup milk , chopped pumpkins, almond, cashews and cardamom seeds and boil it till tender soft.
• Cool down well, then grind it to a fine paste.
• Heat the remaining milk in a large pan. Mix the jaggery as well with milk and boil.
• When it boils, add the pumpkin paste.
• Let it boil. Add ghee slowly every 3 to 4 mins.
• It would start getting thicker. It would take around 15 mins to become thick. Stop and set aside.
• In another small pan, heat 1 teaspoon ghee, add almonds, cashews. Saute for 2 to 3 mins. Add the raisins and saute.
• Garnish the kheer with these nuts and raisins.

My notes:

Allow it cool and keep it in refrigerator. After 3 to 4 hours, this is just so yummy 😀

I used only 1/4 cup of jaggery as the pumpkin by itself was a little sweet, you can vary according to your taste.

You can use normal sugar instead of jaggery as well.