Kheer with twist

This recipe is very close to my heart as this was for the first time that I had searched a fusion recipe for my loving husband. This was 3 years back when we were newly married and I wanted to cook something with unique twist. I came across a website called "Great British Chefs" and found a recipe called Kheer with chocolate and mandarin by chef Vineet Bhatia. After reading list of ingredients and method of cooking I was confident that I could cook this. I wanted this to be a surprise and was very happy when I found that list of ingredients was not very big and best part was that everything required was in my pantry. Let's get started -

Ingredients for Kheer

1. 75g of basmati rice

2. 500 ml of full-fat milk

3. 5 tbsp of granulated sugar

4. 3 Mandarin oranges, juiced

5. 1/2 tsp ground cardamom

6. 1 mandarin, flesh cut into small segments

Ingredients for  Dark chocolate rabdi

1. 2 tbsp of whole hazelnuts

2. 325ml of full-fat milk

3. 100 ml of single cream

4. 50 gms of 65 % dark chocolate, chopped

5. 1 tbsp of cocoa powder

Directions for Kheer and Chocolate Rabdi

1. Put the rice in a sieve, rinse under warm running water then leave to soak in a bowl of warm water for 1 hour. Drain well. 

2. Pour the full-fat milk into a heavy-based pan, add the drained rice and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and cook for 10 minutes, or until a grain of rice breaks easily when pressed gently between your fingers.

3. Make sure most of the milk should have been absorbed and the mixture should be quite thick.

4. Over a low heat, reduce the mandarin juice to half the volume.

5. Stir the sugar into the rice over a gentle heat, then pour in the reduced mandarin juice, stir and cook for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the cardamom. Leave to cool and then chill. Lastly add the mandarin segments and set aside until needed.

6. For the dark chocolate rabdi, scatter the hazelnuts onto a baking tray and bake in a medium oven for 3-5 minutes or until starting to turn brown and crisp. Crush them in a bag with a rolling pin. You could also dry roast them on pan and then crush it. 

7. Pour the milk and cream in a heavy-based saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture has reduced to a third of its original volume

8. Remove from the heat, stir in the dark chocolate, cocoa powder and crushed hazelnuts, leave to cool. Chill thoroughly

9. To serve, pour the chilled mandarin rice kheer into in a martini glass until ¾ full. Pour over a thin layer of dark chocolate rabdi and garnish with an orange slice. 

P.S. I missed to click a pic post garnish with some nuts and segmented mandarin orange :P

Do share your first recipes which is very close to you... 

Kesar-badam shrikhand

In a foreign country, friends are our family. One day our friend Ravi told that he nailed to how perfectly cook khandvi. S and I insisted that he prepares khandvi for us too. After long wait he agreed to prepare and in return he wanted me to prepare puri, bateta nu shak (aloo subzi) and shrikhand. In our culture Shrikhand puri is one of the royal and rich food. I wanted to make sure that this is the best shrikhand and nothing goes wrong. It was a hit when S, Ravi and Zeel liked it. Let's dive in.. 

Ingredients - 

1. 1 1/2 cups full- fat curd/ yogurt (I used greek yogurt)

2. 5-10 tablespoons of sugar (depending on level of sweetness desired)

3. 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

4. Few strands of saffron dissolved in 1 tablespoon of warm water

5. 1 tablespoon of almond slivers 

6. 1 tablespoon of pistachio slivers

Directions - 

1. Dissolve the saffron strands in 1 tablespoon of warm water and keep aside. 

2. Place the curds in a muslin cloth and tie it tight to squeeze the curds and remove all excess water. You could also, pour yogurt in a sieve and refrigerate for 8-10 hours to drain all excess water from it. 

3. Transfer the hung yogurt into a deep bowl, add the powdered sugar and mix well. 

4. Add ground cardamom and saffron water mixture and mix well again but be gentle. 

5. Pour shrikhand into a serving bowl and garnish with almond and pistachio slivers. 

Tips: 

• serve chilled always. 
• make sure all excess water is drained. hung yogurt got to be really thick, like cream cheese. 
• watching a video on youtube shrikhand by Late Tarla Dalal, I learnt that saffron gives best color when dissolved in warm water instead of milk and it was best learning tip.