Planning is key
A scrumptious blend of milk and ground fragrant rice, with a dash of sugar, flavored with green cardamom powder, drizzled with rose water and laced with saffron, garnished with pistachio nuts and edible dried rose petals.
Soaking Time: hour
Preparation Time: minutes
Cooking Time: to 60 minutes
Chilling Time in Refrigerator: 1-1 ½ hours Serves: 04
for Rice01 10 45 minutes
Ingredients and quantity:
Full cream milk -1 ¼ th litres
Basmati Rice, soaked 1/4th cup Saffron, broiled -01 gm. Pistachios -60 gm. Sugar -1/2 cup or as required
Green cardamom powder - ½ teaspoon
Rose water- ½ tbsp.
For the garnish: Pistachio slivered-15 gm. Saffron, broiled-1/2 gm. Rose Petals, edible and dried-02 tsp
Method:
Pick, wash and soak rice for one hour. Boil milk in a heavy bottomed pan and set aside. Drain and grind the 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 stirring continuously so that there are no lumps and it does not burn or stick to the bottom of the pan.
Add sugar and mix. Add green cardamom powder, saffron and mix. Add rose water. When the mixtures starts thickening take it off the flame. Pour into soaked kasoras/ earthenware pots and keep them in the refrigerator to chill for 1 to 1 ½ hours.
Serve chilled garnished with slivered pistachio nuts, saffron and dried edible rose petals.
Chef Tips:
If this needs to be prepared for fasting use Sama (Samvat Rice) soaked for the same time, instead of Basmati rice.
On the first day, which is associated with wealth, large-grain cracked wheat sautéed with and sugar known as is prepared. On the second day which is associated with the elimination of evil spirits, specialities include anarasa, a riceand-jaggery dish that can take up to seven days to prepare.
Starters:
Diwali is a festival which involves eating small things often, so onion
and are the order of the day here with a few paneer and vegetable skewers.
For the main course,
can also be prepared. Want to throw the perfect Diwali party?
Tips:
Go for fresh juices, mocktails, and smoothies instead of serving empty calorie drinks. Don’t rush into making everything you know how to cook! First sit and plan all courses – appetizers, drinks, main course and desserts. What would you like to serve? You may want to recall the menu at your last Diwali do so as to not repeat dishes. Remember not to overdo food preparations to minimise wastage. Don't go overboard with the amount of food you make for your guests.
Keep it simple
They are your friends and they wish to spend time with you and not just eat the whole time.
Serve bite-sized foods
You don’t have to prepare fancy foods that may need a plate and cutlery; instead serve bite-sized foods along with tissue paper and toothpicks or disposable cutlery so that the host is not seen collect-ing crockery from everywhere. You can serve mini bites, mini
corn fritters, cocktail et al without having to do much.
4 DIY cooking
Considering they are your loved ones, there shouldn’t be any room for formalities. So go ahead and make them comfortable with DIY cooking that is, BBQ
Let the presentation do the magic
A good presentation is always a treat to the eye; therefore, invest your time in creatively making a dish or dessert look beautiful.
Sweet goodbyes
You do not want to send your guests away without treating them with delicious desserts. Remember not to serve any milk-made sweets as they may not do any good to their already stuffed tummies and the alcoholic drinks together.
Also, leaving them empty handed is just not the way to go. Towards the end of the night, when your guests are ready to go home, add an element of festive surprise for them. Give them home-made sweets beautifully packed in order to see them off with fond memories.