Churmura Laddu - Low calorie treat

I have always wanted to make these and always thought it must be complicated. Making the right type of syrup that would hold the scores of churmura or murmura together to actually form a laddu - it seemed impossible. But it has turned out to be deceptively simple.

This is one low calorie treat that you can indulge in without any guilt. Just a cup or so of Gur or jaggery, lots of murmura, maybe some dalia or chana and you have these. The Gur or jaggery gives it a rich flavor thats quite different from white sugar.

The recipe is as follows -

Ingredients -

1 -1.5 cups jaggery or Gur or brown sugar

4 cups CHurmura

1/2 cup Dalia ( the flat roasted chana dal)

1 tsp cardamom powder

1 cup water

Method -
1) Take a thick bottomed pan or wok. Add the gur/jaggery and the water. Stir on a low flame until the sugar dissolves and becomes syrupy. Keep heating until a 'goli band' syrup is formed. This means that a drop of the syrup added to a cup of water should solidify immediately.

2) Switch off heat and add the chana/dalia and the churmura. Stir to mix well until the syrup evenly coats the churmura.

3) Place a dollop on your palm and roll to form laddus or balls, slightly larger than a ping pong ball. The laddus will harden right away as the syrup hardens.

4) This should make about 40 laddus.

This is not only low calorie but also economical, and a quick snack on the go for kids and adults both. A great way to satisfy that sweet tooth!

Rava Besan Ladu and Diwali Greetings

Diwali is here again, once again reminding us that the year's almost over. Diwali brings with it several twinkling lights, great food, happy times, vacation for the kids, and alas, lots of smoke and pollution due to crackers. I have never really caught on to what fascination people find in things that make a loud bang!

In our childhood, Diwali used to be a leisurely festival. Preparations would start weeks in advance, where initially my grandma would get all the various grains ready to be ground from the 'chakki' or neighbourhood flour mill. A different delicacy would be made everyday, and stashed away out of sight so that we kids could not sneak out anything before the big day. There was the bad with the good, since this was also the time for exams, and it would be torture trying to study with all the different aromas wafting out from people's windows. The dreaded exams would give way to a 2 week vacation, and the first job would be to build the 'killa' or fort. This was almost always a group project, run in grand fashion with the bullies haggling over 'design', and the meeker kids doing menial tasks like filching and carrying bricks, sand , mud etc. from the neighbourhood as needed and assembling it before the 'construction' began. The completed 'fort' would be either painted in a maroon paint called 'geru' and/or sprinkled with mustard seeds so that a verdant fuzz grew over it by the great Diwali day. Lamps would be lit in the fort and crackers burst around it.

I have no idea if kids still do this, or engage in these simple but exciting pursuits since the virtual world of Wiis and Xboxes has taken over. Also, with our busier lives, and the proliferation of goodies available 'ready-made' in the market, the number of goodies made at home is dwindling, and hence the interest in them too. But nothing can really equal the pleasure of feasting on fresh, hot chaklis that your mother is lifting out of the kadai, or home-made shankar palas or laddus. Although I have been away from home for Diwali for most of the last several years, there is one thing that I always make at home, and this to me brings the quintessential feeling of Diwali - rava besan ladus.

These Ladus are slightly time consuming and difficult since they are made with a syrup, and also are mostly common in my family, compared to the pure besan ladu that is more widely seen. I am providing the method and recipe for a small measure, but the quantity can be doubled as needed.

The recipe is as follows -

Ingredients -

1 cup rava/semolina

1 cup besan/chickpea flour

1 cup ghee

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 Tbsp crushed cardamom

5-6 cashew pieces

2 Tbsp raisins

Method -

1) Heat half cup ghee in a kadai and add the Rava to it. Roast the rava on a Very Low Flame until it becomes slightly pink and lets out a nice nutty aroma. Remove and set aside.

2) Add the remaining ghee to the Kadai and add the chickpea flour or besan. The chickpea flour will initially soak up all the ghee. Keep roasting the besan patiently on a low flame. The besan will gradually change colour and at some point dissolve in the ghee and become slightly liquid. Continue roasting till its a nice brown colour - but not burnt. Remove and set aside.

3) Crumble the cashews and the raisins and powder some cardamom pods. You can also add some grated nutmeg if you wish.

4) Put the sugar in a thick pot and add 1 cup of water. Heat till the sugar dissolves and a simple syrup is made. Continue heating until you get a 'ek tari paak'. This is a marathi term that might be difficult to explain, but I am sure that this has some equivalent in candy terminology. I will try to explain this roughly - as the syrup thickens, check if it starts coating the spoon. Take a little of this syrup between your thumb and forefinger( after cooling slightly slightly), press down, and lift your finger. Check if the syrup forms a strand between your thumb and forefinger. IF you see one strand, you have 'ek taari' or 'one strand' syrup. You want something which is slightly thicker than what you get with the one strand. The thicker the syrup, the more rapidly, it will harden. We want a medium syrup so that our roasted flours soak in it for a couple of hours and absorb all the sweetness. This way, the mixture also cools down enough to allow you to roll the ladus. If the syrup is too thick or hard, everything will harden into a solid ball and will not be pliable at all.

5) After you determine that the syrup is a desired thickness, switch off the heat. Add the cashews, raisins and elaichi powder to the syrup. Add the roasted flours. Start mixing immediately.

6) This is the crucial point in this recipe. If your syrup is very thick, everything will start hardening and will dry up at once. You will have to start rolling the ladus right away. Ideally, the mixture will be a thick liquid that you can cover and let rest for some time - anything between half an hour to four hours. Everyone has their own tack here that they develop over years of making delicious ladus. Keep checking periodically to see if the mixture has solidified and come together like a dough ball.

7) Start rolling the ladus. Take a small amount in the palm of your hand, squeeze as you would squeeze a ball and roll on your palm to form round balls.

8) Place on a plate and let cool.

I wished to share this simple and traditional recipe for rava besan ladu. The description here is a bit crude, and especially esoteric to someone not exposed to Indian cooking and I apologize for it. I am not a pro at this myself, and only ever make this once a year. I have tried to describe this as simply as possible, and am posting this for the benefit of anyone who wants to try it out.

So what are you cooking this Diwali?

Banana Delight - Creamy Rice pudding sweetened with Bananas

I am not sure what is the first image this title will conjure up for anyone who reads it. A quick google search revealed that people have called a wide variety of things 'Banana Delight'. I got this title from the mater whose first reaction after tasting this was, its delightful! Why not call it 'B.. Delight'? So delighted at this reaction, I decided to go ahead with this title! :D

I had a bunch of very ripe bananas sitting on the counter. I am not a big banana fan, and I lose interest once they start giving out a strong smell, and the skin turns black. I wanted to make use of this in some disguised form, and also needed to make some kind of dessert for my company. After looking at some banana recipes on a bunch of websites, a sort of hodge podge formed in my brain and I finally came up with something simple and closer to home. In India, the rice kheer or rice payasam or pudding is more of a south Indian delicacy. In Maharashtra, and especially in our family, this dish is made only on certain sad occasions, like when someone passes away, or ceremonies related to people who have passed on. Queer though this may seem to some, it is true. Hence, I have never really seen this kind of kheer made much in my family. The few attempts I did make, the rice ended up being far more than the milk, or it mostly looked like a 'dudh bhat' or milk and rice.

Having learnt a few lessons, I decided to try a new proportion, and add a few other ingredients to enhance the creaminess. I also decided to use the banana here for sweetness and also for its own unique taste and flavour. The result turned out to be extremely creamy, sweet and flavourful. There are no artificial sweeteners or sugar in this, making this all natural and sugar free. Of course it has the sugar from the bananas, so please keep that in mind if you need to seriously watch your sugar levels. The banana literally dissolves but you get this intense flavour of the banana in each bite, making this so much more than a simple rice pudding. In fact, you can see neither the rice nor the banana, you just spoon a thick creamy mixture bursting with flavour. Without further ado, the recipe for my Banana Delight follows -

Ingredients

-------------
1.5 litre milk

2 Tbsp Rice grains

10-12 almonds

2-3 ripe bananas

3-4 strands saffron

nutmeg to taste

2-3 elaichi or cardammom

1 tsp butter or ghee

pistachios or nuts to garnish

Method

----------

1) Take a thick bottomed pan or wok and start heating the milk. I used full fat milk, but 2% can also be used. I will not recommend anything lower, since this is predominantly a recipe made from milk/cream and should be indulged in sparingly anyway

2) Melt the butter in a small pan and roast the rice grains till they are pinkish in colour. This will release their aroma. You can use basmati rice if you have it, or any other regular rice

3) Roughly chop or dice the bananas and fry them in the remaining butter. The bananas will caramelize. Check that they do not burn and keep stirring. Depending on the
ripeness, some or all the bananas will dissolve or disintegrate. This is OK since we are going to mash and mix it in the milk later anyway. This step will give a subtle caramel like flavour to the whole dish

4) Soak the almonds for some time and remove the skins. Roast them lightly.

5) Grind the rice grains and the almonds in a grinder to make an almost fine powder, between coarse and fine.

6) By this time, the milk should be boiling. Bring it to a simmer and add the rice and almond mixture. Keep stirring. After 10-15 minutes, it will thicken considerably as the rice cooks.

7) Soak some saffron strands in 2-3 tbsp of milk and add them to the rice and milk mixture. You can omit the saffron if you do not like it or do not have it on hand.

8) Mash any remaining bananas, so that most of it becomes puree like. Add this whole mixture to the milk. Keep stirring to avoid burning.

9) Add some grated nutmeg and 1 tsp of freshly ground or ready made elaichi powder or cardammom powder.

10) Also add some chopped pistachios, cashews etc. for crunch.

11) The dish is done once all the ingredients have mixed well and formed a thick pudding like consistency. This will thicken even more after it cools, so please factor that in.

12) Refrigerate and serve chilled garnished with a few chopped nuts

This is a very simple and economical dessert that can be made from stuff in your pantry. The whole process will take 45-60 mins, but you can also be cooking something else while you stir the milk. I hope you try this simple sugcar free treat and let me know how you liked it.