Rava Kesari Recipe - How to make Rava Kesari - Easy Indian Sweets

Rava Kesari is one of my favorites. I really don't know why I kept delaying to post such an easy and basic sweet.  Today is a special day, VijosKitchenCorner is 2 years old and its our 7th wedding anniversary too. Every year we used to plan something for our anniversary. This year we were not in any celebration mood with all the floods and the scars it has left in most of the families here. VJ and his friends are volunteering to rebuild an orphanage home nearby which has been completely washed out with the floods. We hardly had any time on hand for us. So today morning I thought I can atleast prepare this quick kesari. Here is the simple and easy recipe.

Ingredients

Rava - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1 cup or a little lesser than that
Water - 1 & 1/2 cups
Ghee - 1/4 cup
Cardamom - 3-4 crushed
Cashew nuts - 10-15, broken into quarters
Raisins - 10
Kesari colour - a pinch

Method

Heat a heavy bottomed pan and add a teaspoon of ghee and roast the cashew nuts until they turn golden brown. When they start turning golden brown add the raisins and fry until it puffs up. Transfer them to a separate bowl.

In the same pan add the rava and fry until a nice aroma comes out of it. Transfer the rava to a plate. Then add the water, kesari colour and the crushed cardamom to the pan and bring it to a boil. When the water starts boiling add the roasted rava, simmer and cook.

After all the water evaporates, add sugar, roasted cashews and raisins, mix well and cook on low flame until the kesari starts to leave the sides of the pan. Serve hot or warm.

Badam Halwa - Almond Halwa - Diwali Sweets - How To Make Badam Halwa

The festival of lights, Diwali is round the corner. And I have been getting requests from my friends for some new sweets. When one of my friend asked for a sweet made out of badam I remembered Chef Venkatesh Bhat making halwa out of almonds in a show. I had roughly noted then. So for an exact recipe I had to do a little bit of googling and finally adapted with this version. I had made few alterations to the sugar and ghee proportions, still the halwa was super delicious and soft.

Badam halwa is a rich and delicious Indian sweet made with pureed almonds, milk, ghee, sugar and
saffron. Stirring continuously at the right heat is the key for this recipe. Over heat can very easily
burn the halwa. Just make sure you follow the exact steps, the yummy halwa will melt in your mouth

Ingredients (serves 3-4)

Badam - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Milk - 1/2 cup
Ghee - 1/4 cup
Water - 1/4 cup (for dissolving sugar)
Yellow food colour/kesari color - a pinch
Saffron - few strands


Method

Soak almonds overnight and peel the skin. Alternatively you can boil them in hot water for a few minutes and peel the skin.




Grind almonds with 1/4 cup of milk to a smooth paste.




Take a heavy bottomed pan, (I used a non-stick pan, so that it doesn't stick to the bottom) bring 1/4 cup of water to boil, switch off the flame, add sugar and stir, so that the sugar dissolves completely.



Now add the badam paste, remaining milk, kesari color, sugar, saffron and cook on medium flame stirring continuously.



Add ghee little by little, mixing evenly. Add all the ghee except 2 tsp and cook stirring continuously on low flame.

 

It will start bubbling and spluttering. Cautiously keep stirring.



At one point, the ghee will be completely absorbed and the halwa will start leaving the sides of the pan. This took around 15 minutes for me.

Now switch off the flame, add the remaining 2 tsp of ghee and stir for about 3-4 minutes. I learnt that this is important to keep the halwa softer when it sets. The halwa will thicken even more when it cools down.

Jangri - Jangiri - How to make Jangiri

I have tried my hands on with Jangiris only once and that was couple of years back, when I had no idea of food blogging. So I hadn't clicked any pictures of it then. From the day I started sharing my recipes I wanted to make them again and post the recipe. This time I prepared this for double dhamaka. Its a treat for VJ's bday and my FB page (https://www.facebook.com/ViJosKitchenCorner)  crossed 1500+ likes. That calls for a treat rite? :-)

Making these jangiris are not very tough. With little bit of patience and practice we can get perfect ones. Do try this recipe and let me know!!

Ingredients

Whole urad dal - 1 cup
Rice flour - 2 tsp
Orange food color/kesar color - 1/4 tsp

For sugar syrup

Sugar - 2 cups
Water - just to immerse sugar
Lemon juice - 1/2 tsp
Rose essence - 3 or 4 drops (optional)

Method

1. Wash and soak the urad dal for 2 hours. Drain excess water and grind it to a smooth and fluffy batter, without adding much water, as we do for medhu vada. Add rice flour and food color and mix well. Beat the batter nicely with your hands. Beating the batter is very important as it makes the batter more fluffy. Now the jangiri batter is ready.
2. Take a ziplock cover or a thick plastic cover and make a hole with a thin nail, the hole should be very tiny.
3. Prepare the sugar syrup - Heat a heavy bottomed pan, add sugar. Add water just to immerse the sugar. Stir the sugar syrup occasionally, boil until the syrup is sticking in hands or just when a string starts to form. Now add rose essence and stir it well. Switch off the flame. To prevent the sugar syrup from crystallizing,  add half a teaspoon of lemon juice. If the sugar syrup gets crystallized after some time we can again keep in low flame and add a tablespoon of water and dilute it again.
4. Start piping the Jangiris. Fill half the cover with batter and try piping on a plate first to practice the patterns. First pipe 2 circles, then on the top of it make smaller circles without stopping. Try this once or twice before piping directly into the oil. 
5. Take a  broad and flat bottomed pan with less oil, say 1inch depth. Heat the oil and reduce the flame to low and start piping the jangiris. The oil should not get fully heated,when it starts forming small bubbles in the bottom start the process.
6. Fry on both sides until it turns golden brown and crispy. Use a stainless steel rod or a wooden skewer for flipping and taking it out. Handle the jangiris carefully, while touching the jangiris with skewer/rod if they feel soft they need to be cooked for few more seconds. 
7. Once cooked remove it from oil and drop it into the prepared sugar syrup. Press it gently with a ladle inside the sugar syrup. Let is soak, meantime we will prepare the second batch as we did the first one. 
8. Once the second batch is ready remove the first batch from the sugar syrup and keep it on a plate to dry, allow them a standing time of 30 mins to 1 hour for best taste. Then drop the second batch of jangiris into the sugar syrup. In this way repeat the process for the rest of the batter. Yummy and delicious jangiris are ready