Pedas for Ganesha: Indian Milk Fudge

Ganesha, the elephant-headed God, is perhaps the most famous from among the pantheon of Hindu deities.  Traditionally, Ganesha is considered the God of knowledge and is prayed to at the start of any new venture.  Every year, the birthday of Ganesha – termed Ganesh Chathurthi --  is celebrated with great pomp throughout India.  This was one of my very favorite times of the year as a child growing up in India.  The monsoons would have come to an end.  My birthday would be right around the corner.  We’d even have several days off from school.  On the morning of Ganesh Chathurthi, we would wake up early and head to the local clay artist who would have set aside a lovely clay Ganesha just for me.  We would bring home this colorful statue with great pomp – I even had a little parasol just for this occasion, so that I could hold it over Ganesha’s head as we walked him home under the scorching Indian sun.  This same ritual would be playing out all around us, as our friends and neighbors also brought home their own special Ganesha statues to install at home.  Traditionally, this would be followed by 3 to 10 days of prayer.  At the end of this period, the Ganesha statue would be taken to the local lake and allowed to dissolve.  As the clay sculpture of Ganesha dissolves, he is thought to melt away all the misfortunes of his loyal devotees.

In Bombay, in particular, Ganesh Chathurthi was celebrated with great fanfare.  In the months leading up to day, almost every temple would commission local artists to create humongous Ganesha statues – the larger the temple, the larger the statue and the more elaborate the display.  After months of seeing these temporary installations being secretively built behind burlap scaffolding, during the week of Ganesh Chathurthi, the drapes would finally be lifted and we would be allowed to wander, awestruck, through the ever-more elaborate sets.  This would all culminate with the city awarding prizes to the temples with the best displays.

Closer to home, other festivities would be brewing.  As is evident from his big belly, Ganesha is considered to be quite the gourmand, so one of the mainstays of this festival is the range of delicacies prepared by my mom and my friends' moms, alike.  

Even today, though I have moved far, far away from these scenes of my childhood, the memories of those celebrations are still fresh in my heart.  While I don’t necessarily have the time to prepare elaborate delicacies before heading out to work in the morning, I do still try to make something special in the kitchen to mark the occasion. A few months ago, I came across several recipes for microwavable Doodh peda, a type of dense Indian milk fudge.  I have since been able to adapt this recipe for just such an occasion.  So, although my ramblings about my childhood memories have been long, this recipe is anything but complicated or time-consuming.  It literally comes together in less than 10 minutes but tastes like you have been reducing milk over the stove for hours and hours.

So, in honor of today’s celebration of Ganesh Chathurthi, I give you this super simple Doodh peda or milk fudge recipe.  With its short, short ingredient list, and the ease of zapping it up in a microwave, I have a feeling that this recipe is going to make into my own fledgling list of kitchen traditions.

Microwaveable Doodh Peda or Milk Fudge (makes 2 dozen)

1 14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk

2 C non-fat dried milk

1 stick of unsalted butter

4 pods of green cardamom, peeled and finely ground

A pinch of saffron (optional)

Nuts (optional for garnish)

Place butter in a large microwavable bowl and microwave for about a minute, until butter is melted

Stir in dried milk and condensed milk until well mixed

Place bowl on a plate, and heat in microwave at full power for 4 minutes in 1 minute intervals

After each minute, remove from microwave and stir well

Watch carefully so that the mixture doesn't bubble over while heating (but in any case, that's what the plate beneath the bowl is for)

Once mixture is thickened to a fluffy ricotta-like consistency, add cardamom and saffron.

Mix well, and spread on plate to cool for about 2 minutes

Once it's cool enough to handle, make 1 inch balls and flatten out slightly to form a thick disk

Garnish top of disk with nuts or more saffron

Store for up to a week in the fridge

Lots and lots of Lassi

Anyone who has been to an Indian restaurant is familiar with this delicious Indian drink made with yogurt and sugar. Some restaurants will serve this drink made with milk, and while this can be delicious, a true lassi is always made with yogurt or buttermilk. In India, it’s found in many different incarnations, including saffron-flavored, mango-flavored, or just plain. It also comes in varying levels of viscosity, from a really thin liquid you can slurp by the gallonful to a thick, creamy dessert version. The latter is generally found in dairy stores, is sold in earthen pots called matkas, and is so thick that it requires a spoon to “drink”. Although the sweet lassi that is popular outside India belongs to Northern India, flavored yogurt/buttermilk drinks are prevalent in Southern India as well. In the hotter South, these drinks are generally served in a savory version with curry leaves, salt, and a unique spice called asafoetida, to alleviate the sweltering summer (and winter) heat. This drink is called “mōr” (pronounced ‘more’) and is definitely more-ish.

So, whether you fancy a salty or a sweet lassi, here are the basic recipes for both, along with some variations for something fancier.

Sweet Kesar Badaam Lassi

¾ C yogurt, I use non-fat

1 small pinch kesar (saffron)

2 T milk to dissolve saffron

¼ tsp. Ground cardamom

1 T chopped or slivered badaam (almonds)

Enough water to achieve desired consistency for the drink. I usually use ½ C to ¾ C depending on how thick the yogurt is.

1 sachet of splenda, or sugar/sweetener to taste.

Dissolve saffron in milk and let steep for 5 minutes

Whisk together all ingredients except nuts.

Serve, topped with chopped nuts.

Plain lassi: Omit saffron, but preferably not the cardamom.

Mango lassi: Instead of water, use canned or fresh mango puree to thin yogurt. Use equal amounts of mango puree as yogurt. Adjust sweetener if mango puree is pre-sweetened.

Mōr (A salty lassi from Southern India)

1 C low-fat buttermilk

1 C water

A pinch of salt

A tiny sprinkle of asafetida (can be purchased at Indian grocery stores. I cannot stress enough that you must use very little of this pungent spice).

5 large curry leaves, coarsely crushed

3 spicy green chilies, such as Serrano, sliced lengthwise in half (optional)

To make: Mix all ingredients in a bottle and shake vigorously. Optional step -- strain out curry leaves and chillies. Pour into an ice-filled glass and drink-up – it’s as simple as that.

We all scream for ice-cream!

Aaah, sweet sunshine at last! Spring arrived in Portland a while ago, but although the birds were a-chirping and the buds were a-blooming, it hadn't really felt like winter had released its cold grey hold. Until this week, that is. Finally, we have seen a few days of uninterrupted sunshine, and both I and my garden are grateful for it. With sunshine, of course, comes many things – roses, picnics, trips to the beach, Vitamin D, and best of all, ice-cream. I have a theory that no one can be angry when they're eating ice-cream. It has the power of transporting us to a happy place, at least for the few moments while we relish the creamy, cold, sweetness before it starts to melt all over our hands and clothes. (Hmmm, I hope some of you can relate to this, because otherwise, I may just be a very messy ice-cream eater.)

I've wanted to write a post about ice-cream for a long, long time, especially after a recent trip to Italy which began and ended with cones of freshly-made gelato (and was heavily punctuated with more gelato in between, of course). In retrospect, almost every phase of my life has had a particular ice-cream "experience" associated with it.

Tartufo in Rome

When I was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, trips to the Babcock Hall Dairy Store was de rigueur in the summers. The trick to the summer ice-cream jaunts was to get to Babcock Hall before the kindergarteners arrived en masse. Once those little ice-cream eyed kids got in line before you, you knew that it would be well past an agonizing half hour before you got your hands on any "Union Utopia" or "Badger Brownie Blast".

As an undergraduate at the University of New Hampshire, we had a similar summer routine of weekly ice-cream trips to the UNH Dairy Bar. Situated at a quaint train station, which at the time was defunct, the Dairy Bar would serve up whopping portions of cool treats, all locally made at the University.

Growing up in Japan, the preferred summer cold treat was shaved ice. Now, I know what you're thinking, shaved ice is not ice-cream. Yes, I agree. But in the humid, 90-degree plus days of summer in Kobe, Japan, melon- and pineapple-flavored shaved ice was in many ways far better than ice-cream. I have countless memories of being saved by shaved ice during the summers of my teen years: lemon-flavored ice after swimming at the local recreation center; strawberry-flavored ice with friends after a window-shopping trip; coconut-flavored ice with my dad at the summer 'matsuri'. In fact, shaved ice is so popular in Japan that even in crowded cities, the shaved ice vendor would wind through the streets with his cart, loudly advertising his goodies. This brings me to my favorite ice-cream memories of all, the ones of my childhood in Bombay.

One of the most important experiences of summer holidays as a child was the utter boredom that inevitably came after the initial frenzy of unbridled joy. As I grow older, I find that I really miss having the time to be bored. Amidst the alternating joy and boredom of summer hols, one man would appear nightly in our neighborhood, giving us kids something to look forward to. No, not Wee Willie Winkie but the "kulfiwallah", or, literally translated, the 'kulfi'-man. (If I were a better artist, I could probably draw a pretty good replica of this man, since his image seems to be etched in my memory. But as it is, my drawing skills leave much to be desired, and I'm left with just my words to paint you a picture of those summer nights, instead.)

Kulfi (recipe follows below) is a type of Indian ice-cream that is made by slow-freezing a concoction of reduced milk and sugar, flavored with pistachios, cardamom, or saffron. The kulfiwallah of our neighborhood was an old man, wrinkled with age, his skin leathery from having walked around under the Bombay sun all day long. His voice was always hoarse, and on the brink of cracking, which, in my naïveté, I imagined was a result of eating too many kulfis. His cry of "kulfi-wallah" was to be heard quite frequently during the balmy summer nights. He would be dressed in loose-fitting pants and shirt that were once white, with a pointed white cap on his head. He carried on his head a huge straw basket covered with a damp red cloth, concealing dozens of sealed metal tubes. If you had been good and your parents decided to buy you some kulfi that day, he would set down his heavy load and pull out a metal tube, open it deftly with a long knife, and coax a perfectly molded kulfi out of it onto a leaf – I don't know what kind of leaf this was, but I'm sure my dad could remind me. He would then use his long knife to quickly cut up the kulfi into bite-sized pieces and hand it over into your eager hands, just as its edges started to melt in the summer heat.

Now, I'm very aware that we generally tend to romanticize memories of our past, but looking back on these memories, I still think that life doesn't really get better than treasured moments of eating ice-cream in the summer's heat! On this note, here's my recipe for making a kulfi-like ice-cream in a home ice-cream maker. You could also freeze this in popsicle-molds for a more authentic kulfi. Enjoy.

Kulfi

Ingredients

• 1/2 gallon milk, plus 6 T warm milk -- I use skim milk, but you can use 2% or whole fat for a creamier taste
• 1 can of condensed milk, plus more sugar to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon ground green cardamom seeds1/4 cup coarsely ground pistachios or almonds (optional)
• A few strands of saffron

Method

• Place the saffron in 2T warm milk to extract the saffron flavor.
• Dissolve corn starch in 4 T warm milk and set aside.Place the remaining milk in heavy wok or double boiler and bring to boil over medium-high heat, stirring continuously.
• Reduce the heat and continue stirring and boiling until the milk is reduced a bit.
• Using a method used in making Sicilian gelato, I next add the cornstarch mixture to the boiling milk and continue boiling for ~10 minutes, or until the mixture is thickened. This step cuts down the time needed to make kulfi considerably, and also lets me use skim milk in the recipe. However, the correct way of making kulfi would be to allow the milk to boil down to ~1/4 of its original volume.
• Add the saffron. Taste the mixture, and add more sugar if you think you need it. Remember that foods taste sweeter when they are warm than when they are cooled.
• Freeze in ice-cream maker according to instructions, or transfer to popsicle molds (or ice-cube trays) and freeze for at least 4 hours. (If using this latter freezing methods, dip your mold in hot water for about 5 seconds before attempting to free the kulfi.)
  

To serve, garnish with chopped nuts and a smile.

Sunny Saffron

Winter has been unusually mild here in Portland. Yes, we have had our fair share of rain and gloom, but at the end of January, I'm already hearing birds chirping and seeing buds blooming in the garden. Just this past week, I have been stopped in my tracks by the appearance of our very first crocus, awakening sleepily from its winter's rest.


So I thought it fitting that this first recipe of the New Year have something to do with saffron. Saffron, of course, is the highly aromatic spice that is derived from the stigmas of the Saffron crocus (Crocus sativa). Wikipedia has an excellent entry about Saffron, with the sections on the history of its trade and its chemical properties being particularly interesting. Therefore, instead of boring you with a regurgitation of the facts, I will simply direct you to : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron

Since saffron is the world's most expensive spice, worth much more than its weight in gold, it's a good thing that a little bit of it goes a long way. Spanish saffron is often considered to be some of the world's best. However, saffron cultivars grown in the Kashmir region of India, as well as Italian varieties that I have admittedly never tasted, are apparently a lot more potent and sought after for their strong aromas. Saffron can be purchased in specialty grocery stores or Indian grocery stores. Once you get over the sticker shock and actually bring some home, I guarantee that you will be rewarded with a flavor and aroma that will sweetly scent your home and mesmerize your senses.

Now that I've rambled on about how expensive this sweet spice is, I will make you all jealous by telling you that one of my friends recently gave me a whole load of top-quality saffron from her spice cabinet. (This was after I had already cooked my way through a large gift of Spanish saffron from another friend.) What can I say – I guess I'm fortunate to have friends worth way more that their weights in gold!

So, armed with this new reserve of the precious dark maroon filaments, I set out to create a saffron cookie to share with my colleagues at a work meeting this week. I'm glad to say that they turned out just as I had hoped: slightly soft, a pleasant yellow in color, and bursting with saffron flavor. Many of my colleagues had never (knowingly) eaten anything cooked with saffron before, and the cookies were a big hit. I would definitely make these again, especially if having friends over for tea or a fancy brunch. While these cookies are delicious, they are also extremely satisfying, thanks to the incomparable flavor of the saffron. If, like me, you have a bit of a sweet tooth, this satiating quality is definitely desirable in a cookie.

So, without further ado, here's my recipe for Saffron Cashew Cookies. Do leave a comment if you decide to give these a try; I'd love to hear how they turned out for you. Bon appétit!

Saffron Cashew Cookies

To make about 18 cookies, you will need:

1 stick (1/2 C) unsalted butter, slightly softened

1 egg

2 scant cups of unbleached all-purpose flour

¾ C granulated sugar

¼ C packed brown sugar

1 tsp of vanilla extract

1 tsp baking soda

A pinch of salt

3 pods of cardamom*

A (generous) pinch of saffron, crushed and steeped in 3 T of warm milk for a few minutes**

1 C (or more of roasted cashew halves or pieces)

* A note about cardamom: this is another spice highly favored in Indian cuisine and makes a wonderful accompaniment to saffron. I think it helps to really enhance the flavor of saffron, and if you can plan ahead, I highly recommend that you not omit this from the recipe. You can purchase ground cardamom and use 1 tsp in this recipe, but the best flavor will be obtained from actually buying green cardamom pods, and using a mortar and pestle to pound these into a fine powder. After you pound the pods a few times, they should open up. At this point, remove the skins, and continue to powder just the black inner seeds. This sounds like a lot of work, but it really isn't, and the reward will be more than worth the effort!

Beat the sugars and butter together until creamy.

Add the egg and vanilla, along with the 'saffronated' (saffronized?) milk; beat to mix well

Combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and powdered cardamom in a separate bowl

Add flour mixture to egg/butter mixture and mix gently with a rubber spatula until well combined

(**Check to make sure your dough is a pleasant yellow color. If it isn't, you may not have added enough saffron. You can steep a little more in no more than 1 T warm milk at this time, and add it to your cookie dough, if you want).

Add cashews, reserving about 18 for garnish, and mix well to combine

Refrigerate the cookie dough for about an hour

Preheat oven to 350 deg F

Place the dough in mounded tablespoon-fulls on a greased cookie sheet

Flatten slightly with the tines of a fork

Press a cashew half on top as a garnish, if desired

Bake for 12-14 minutes till cookies are an even brown on the bottom

Resist the temptation to pounce on these as soon as they come out of the oven! They will be a lot better (and safer) once they cool slightly.

These cookies store well at room temperature in an air-tight container for upto 5 days. They are great on their own or paired with a hot cuppa chai.

Through my guesstimating eyes...

As the author of a food blog, it goes without saying that I really enjoy cooking and like to think that I am sometimes moderately successful. However, blogging about food has turned out to be quite a bit more complicated than doing the actual cooking. One of the main reasons for this is having to write down exact recipes for all my creations -- a task that I have always put off in the past. Being a scientist, I am no stranger to following precise recipes mixed to exacting specifications. But I must say, that when it comes to everyday cooking, I’m pretty much of a pinch-of-this and a splash-of-that kinda gal. I don’t always know how many tablespoons (although I can estimate those pretty well) or how many ounces (I can’t estimate those at all) of any given ingredient goes into my recipes. I also believe in using what you have on hand rather than hunting down specific ingredients. And since I don’t usually bother writing down my recipes, they never turn out quite the same every time I make them. This allows for plenty of variety, but sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I had written down exactly how I made that ancho mole sauce I made for Thanksgiving in 2006. Perhaps I have been playing to increasingly tougher crowds, but I am yet to receive as many rave reviews on anything as I did for that sauce!

Starting this food blog has hence been a blessing and a bane. On the one hand, my cooking speed has been considerably slowed down since I now measure out all my ingredients in order to be able to recreate them in my posts. On the other hand, I have finally started a collection of recipes that I enjoy making and eating – this should, in theory at least, make the question: “What’s for dinner?” a lot easier to answer in the future.

However, for old-time’s sake (and because I’m a bit pressed for time today), I thought I would share with you one of my recipes as seen through my guesstimating eyes. Here’s what’s for dinner, tonight. Enjoy!

Tomato Spinach shells with Basil-Saffron Cream sauce

Half a package of Tomato Spinach Shells, cooked al dente
1 pat butter
2 small splashes extra-virgin olive oil
A couple of tablespoons of pumpkin seeds
One large spoonful of minced garlic
One large spoonful of minced basil
4 dried red chili peppers, crumbled
(On a 3-star spice scale, this will definitely earn you 4-stars; not for the faint-of-heart)
A handful of thinly-sliced red onions
A fistful of all-purpose flour
2 small splashes of half and half
About 2 C milk (I used skim milk)
A dash of grated parmesan
Half a cup of petite peas
2 small pinches of saffron strands
(The sweetness of the saffron balances the spice of the chilis nicely)
Salt to taste


Toast pumpkin seeds lightly in hot skillet and remove
Melt butter in same skillet, add onions, garlic, chili peppers and basil to butter and sautee until fragrant
Add olive oil to skillet and sautée for an additional minute or so
Add A/P flour and sautee for a couple of minutes
Add half-and-half, milk, and parmesan; toss in peas
Salt to taste and allow sauce to simmer and thicken
Stir in saffron
Serve atop shells with a side of steamed corn-on-the-cob.