While all known to me will vouch for my preference for spicy food (spice-toothed ;), times I do feel like having something sweet. O ya, not to forget all those sweet-toothed lovelies around me!
So, after a real long time, I started my experimentation with making a very simple sweet dish "Semolina / Rava Kesari".
Ingredients
- Semolina / Sooji / Rava : 2 cups
- Sugar : 1.25 - 1.5 cups
- Ghee : 4-5 tbs (1 cup)
- Cashew : 10 pieces (broken)
- Raisins : 10 pieces
- Kesari Color (food color) : a few pinch (as dark as you prefer, this gives the orange tinge)
- Water : 3 cups (or more as required to boil semolina)
- Cardamom powder : 2 pieces of cardamom powdered
Method:
- Dry roast semolina / sooji in a kadai till it starts turning slightly brown. Remove to a steel plate or bowl
- To this, add a tbspn of ghee and roast the cashew nuts and raisins till golden brown.
- To this, add the dry roasted semolina. Add one or two tspn of ghee and roast this to golden brown
- In parallel to steps 2 and 3, bring the water to boil in a separate container. To this, add the Kesari color powder.
- Add the hot water slowly to the semolina mix with continuous stirring to ensure no lumps are formed. Semolina should dissolve smoothly in the water and form a juicy mix
- To this, add sugar and stir it well.
- Close the kadai and allow it to cook in a low flame (we could also switch off the fire and cook it for a few minutes. Then, light the stove and cook it on low flame)
- Cook till semolina is well cooked and starts leaving the sides of the kadai
- Add cardamom powder, and top it with some ghee
- Remove from fire and serve hot
Note: From my attempt, I realized a few things to improvise:
- Can use a little more water to make the kesari a bit juicy than dry
- Can powder the roasted semolina to give it a better texture
- Add more sugar if you are sweet-toothed
- Add more color to have a good orange tinge
Try having some hot kesari with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It tastes yummmm :)
