Homemade Indian sweets

Hello from glorious, hot, humid Kerala, where I'm reminiscing about my time up north while luxuriating under fans with cool drinks. (This is the life I'd like to lead if I were to live in India again, let me tell you.)

But back to blogging and getting caught up.

Another of the food items I wanted to learn on this whirlwind tour of India was how to make Gita-taiji's famous sweets. The Dehradun-based aunt has been sending sweets to Vivek and his brother, Mani, since they can remember.

So on a rainy Saturday afternoon, Gita-taiji set about teaching me how to make besan burfi, a sweet made of besan (chickpea flour), ghee (clarified butter), spices and almonds. It turned out to be a simpler process than I had expected, though rather time-consuming overall.

Gita-taiji takes over to demonstrate proper roasting technique.

While stirring, it's best to compress the besan against the bottom of the pan, which helps to keep the flour separated, rather than just stirring it. 

Simply stirring can cause the flour to clump into tiny, boondi-like forms (demonstrated by me).

Almond halves provide a nice contrast to the golden color of the roasted besan. 

The roasted besan is mixed with cardamom and sugar to create a dough.

To make greasing the pan easier, Gita-taiji uses the leftover heat from the stove burner where we roasted the besan.

When finished, the sweet will look something like this. All that's left is to separate and package the squares.

After this cooking lesson was over, I also watched Gita-taiji at work making bread -- Saturday night's rotis and Sunday morning's parathas. That Sunday sari brunch is getting more and more complete!

--------------------------------------------

Besan Burfi
from the kitchen of Gita Bhatnagar

1 c. besan (chickpea flour)
1/2 c. ghee (you might not need this much)
green cardamom powder (to taste)
sugar (to taste)
10-15 almonds (optional, for decoration)

Roast the besan and ghee together in a pan (a wok would work nicely if you have one) until the besan turns a dark golden color. (This is a simple step but a long one, so be patient. If the besan is not roasted enough, the texture of the sweet will be too chewy.) While stirring, mash the flour against the pan to compress it. Add ghee as needed.

Once the besan has been roasted, remove from heat to cool. While it's cooling, slice almonds in half.

When the besan is cool enough to touch, add the cardamom powder and sugar and mix into the dough with your hands. Line a metal pan with a bit of ghee and place dough onto pan, compressing and shaping the form to create a five- to six-inch square that's about three-quarters of an inch thick.

Slice the sweet into one-inch square pieces and place an almond half, skin-side down for contrast, on each piece. Sweets will be ready to package when they can be lifted from the pan without sticking.

Dehradun, land of sweets

"Land of Rain" might be a better nickname for Dehradun in the 28-odd hours since I arrived here -- but in memory, for me, it's the land of sweets made by Gita-taiji, wife to one of Pops' six brothers.

We arrived yesterday afternoon and have had something sweet at every meal thus far. We started off at lunch with Gita-taiji's homemade gajar halwa.

Gita-taiji's homemade gajar halwa, that delicious carrot pudding.

At tea, we had an entire array of sweets to choose from -- so, obviously, I took one of each.

An assortment of Gita-taiji's sweets, including (l-r): sesame seed ladoo, coconut  burfi and besan burfi, which is made with gram flour.

Finally, we finished off dinner with a bit of gazak (more on that soon in a #latergram food catch-up) and some soan papdi.

I've had soan papdi before and found it just fine -- but this one, packed up from Haldiram's, was especially melty, like a good piece of cotton candy. (Pardon the turmeric under my nails.)

As you can see, I might have been underestimating my sweet tooth when I told Anna R. that I hadn't quite yet developed a taste for Indian sweets. As it turns out, I've been diving into them at every turn on this trip.

At the moment, in fact, I'm being summoned for my cooking lesson. Perhaps I'll be making some of these myself soon in San Francisco.

Meals: A round-up

I woke up all ready to post a bit about my stop to see Big Ben, Picadilly and the Thames -- but it seems I've forgotten the cable to my DSLR, where the loveliest of my London photos are lodged. So you'll have to content yourselves for now with a round-up of my food photos, most of which I've taken with my phone.

Up first: The first plane meal I had, following that delicious (and greedy) pizza at SFO. Virgin Atlantic -- lovely all around as an airline -- served up chicken korma as an option for Monday evening's meal, and I thought it was delicious.

Chicken korma with rice, daal and a bit of fried onion, flanked by the hip, purple Virgin Atlantic plastic cutlery.

Next, in London, I sought out the obligatory meal of fish and chips (and pint). I'd 'borrowed' a Frommers ebook on London from the San Francisco library, and the closest fish joint to Westminster, where I was spending much of my day, was Rock and Sole Plaice on Endell Street. I'm typically a Lonely Planet devotee, so this was my first experience with Frommers -- and it did well. Battered cod, recommended by one of the fry guys, arrived in a huge portion with an equally massive mountain of fries, all of which seemed to dwarf my cold pint.

Battered cod with delicious tartar sauce, fries with vinegar and salt and an Efes pilsner.

I could eat only half of the fish -- and even then, I blame it for the necessity of parcels at afternoon tea. I met my old friend Anna at the National Portrait Gallery's restaurant, where we mulled over all that's happened in the nearly five years since we'd seen each other while also taking in 180-degree views out over the city. It was lovely, but you'll have to take my word for it, as I was too jet-lagged by then to remember to take a photo.

The parcel, however, I remembered to photograph in the midst of my flight to Bombay. I'd finally regained my appetite -- and after devouring the chicken with coriander and dahi, I also ate the orange spice cake, which had been so beautifully wrapped as a foil handbag, as I sipped my chai.

Empty food containers, including one that contained chicken with coriander and rice, one of dahi from Sussex, and one of kulfi. 

The lovely tinfoil parcel, before I destroyed it to get to the orange spice cake.

Finally, last evening, I got to dig in after dinner to a treat dropped off by a neighbor: handmade chocolate dessert cups, filled with strawberry-flavored whipped cream and topped with a fresh strawberry. This dish had the potential to be overly sweet, with all that strawberry syrup, but the chef had done it just right.

Homemade chocolate fruit cups.

And with all of that food posting behind me now, I absolutely must go and have my morning tea. I'm feeling famished all of a sudden!