Festive delicacies

Kesar Pista Phirni

Ingredients

• 1¼ litre full cream milk
• ¼ cup sama rice
• Few strands of saffron
• 10-15 pistachios
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ tsp cardamom powder
• ½ tbsp rose water for garnishing
• 5-10 pistachios, slivered
• Handful of dried rose petals
• Earthenware pots for serving

Method

• Pick, wash and soak rice for one hour.
• Boil milk in a heavy bottomed pan and set aside. Drain and grind the sama rice coarsely.
• Broil saffron and set aside. Blanch pistachios, peel and cut into slivers.
• Add the coarsely ground rice paste to the milk and cook. Stir continuously so that there are no lumps and it does not burn or stick to the bottom of the pan.
• Now add sugar, cardamom powder, saffron and rose water. When the mixture starts thickening take it off the flame.
• Pour into earthenware pots and keep them in the refrigerator to chill for one to two hours.
• Serve chilled, garnished with slivered pistachio nuts, saffron and dried rose petals.

Reetu Uday Kugaji, celebrity chef

MALAI PANEER

Ingredients

• 15-20 cashew nuts
• 2 green chillies
• A small piece of ginger
• 1 tsp cumin seed
• 2 tsp garam masala
• Salt to taste
• 2 tbsp kasuri methi
• ½ cup fresh cream
• 1 cup milk
• 200 gm paneer, cut into small size
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 tbsp butter

Method

• Boil chilli, ginger and cashews for ten minutes. Let it cool and grind it to fine paste. Heat butter and oil in a kadai and add cumin seeds and the paste made earlier. Sauté it for five to ten minutes.
• When cooked, add fresh cream and stir it for another minute.
• Now add milk, paneer, garam masala and kasuri methi.
• Cook for another minute and serve hot.

Ruchita Rawtani, food connoisseur

Millet Pongal

Ingredients

• 1 cup foxtail millet
• 1 cup moong dal
• 1 cup jaggery
• Handful of mix nuts
• 1 tbsp raisins
• 1 tbsp coconut, grated
• 1 tbsp ghee

Method

• Wash millets and dal separately. Soak for two hours, pressure cook and keep aside.
• Melt the jaggery with few spoons of water to make the syrup, filter it and add to the boiled millets and dal and cook for few more minutes
• Roast nuts and raisins in ghee and mix half the quantity in the pongal. Garnish with the remaining nuts and top with grated coconut.

Ruchika Sharma, celebrity chef

Senaga pappu payasam

Ingredients

• ½ cup chana dal
• 1 litre milk
• ½ cup sabudana
• ½ cup jaggery
• Handful of mix nuts
• 1 tbsp coconut, chopped
• ¼ tsp cardamom powder
• 2 tsp ghee

Method

• Soak sabudana for two hours.
• Boil dal in water and keep it aside. In a separate vessel boil milk and sabudana and mix it in the boiled dal and cook together till soft. Melt the jaggery with few spoons of water to make the syrup.
• Add this to the boiling dal and sabudana mixture along with coconut and cardamom powder and stir well.
• Roast nuts and raisins in ghee and mix half the quantity in the payasam and use the remaining to
• garnish the payasam. Serve hot.