Sweet vermicelli kheer or dessert
A lil birdie visited me today. I saw her and thought to myself, she must be hungry… And so was I… Well she flew away, but the thought remained…
The TV telecasted sweet savories and the mind played tunes of some sweet and bitter memories…while calls poured in since it was a so-called special day…
While I sat back relaxed…not in the mind though, I decided to whip up a sweet vermicelli/sewai kheer.
Rice Kheer is a popular dish on special occasions, but many like the sewai version better because its less heavy and tastes beautiful and sometimes like sweet soupy noodly goodly delight…
As Wikipedia aptly informs…”Vermicelli is a traditional type of pasta round in section similar to spaghetti.…The dish in the original language are variously known as seviyan in Urdu and Hindi, shemai in Bengali, sev in Gujarati, shavige in Kannada, sevalu or semiya in Telugu, and semiya in Tamil and Malayalam. The noodles are used in a number of dishes including a variation of kheer, a sweet dessert similar to rice pudding. Vermicelli are also used in many parts of India to make a popular dish called upma. ”
Sometimes, you don’t want a full fancy meal but want to revive old memories…you want replicate the original with right proportions..and nothing fusiony, experimental.. because somethings are good the good’ol original way!
For this recipe for two servings..
–>You need One litre of full cream good quality milk. Since milk is the main ingredient here. So no comprise!
–>Half a fist of sewai/vermicilli or a ratio of 2:6 (6 being milk)
–>Sugar: one fourth quantity of the milk or 2 to 3 tbsps of sugarfree sweetners for the calorie conscious.. sigh!
–>Milkmaid or condensed milk
–> Cashews, raisins, almonds
–>Cardamom powder if you like the taste of cardamom
–>Saffron (Optional..add if you want to add that shaahi/royal touch)
- Let the milk boil in a deep thick bottomed pot on low flame till reduced. Try reducing it to half by continuously supervising that the milk doesn’t get stuck to the bottom of the pan. You can ensure that by stirring it in between, and keeping a ladle in the milk.
- Take another pan and roast the broken vermicelli in half tsp of ghee/clarified butter.
- Use a roasted vermicelli packet in which case you need to roast these for 2 to 3 minutes only otherwise till lightly pink or golden brown.
- Keep the vermicilli aside and roast the nuts in the same pan in ghee and switch off flame once they are just about roasted. Keep an eye to avoid burning of these nutty nuts.
- Meanwhile once the milk starts reducing add the sugar and milkmaid.
- After stirring and having reduced the milk to desired level, add the vermicelli evenly. (Actually since we are using condensed milk, you might avoid reducing it all the way to half, reducing it just a little to get a thicker texture is enough)
- Stir to avoid lumps from forming.
- Add the raisins so that they swell up and cuddle up with the lovely ingredients that have already created a storm in the pot with a lovely aroma.
- After another 10 to 12 minutes add the roasted nuts and if you like few roasted grated almonds.
- Sprinkle little pinch of cardamom powder.
- Add the few saffron strands.
- Switch off the flame.
- Let it stand for couple of minutes. Serve slightly warm in your favourite bowl and I say two spoons for a sweet, memorable experience with your loved one.
Might be good to keep in mind:
–> Vermicelli have a tendency to thicken up in milk so its better to take lesser quantity compared to the milk and have it warm.
–>Roasting the nuts before adding to the kheer helps get a rich aroma, although personally I like the kheer without any nuts or raisins somehow
–>The things with such sweet /dessert is that the proportion is very important and the method helps make or break the dish.
–>Sometimes lot of people do not reduce the milk for this kind of dessert, but reducing it gives the rich gooey creamy taste and texture of milk that makes the cooking worth it. Just make sure that the quantity of vermicelli is much much lesser to the milk.
–>Once you add the vermicelli the texture starts thickening. So its good to keep an eye.
–>If you in trouble reducing the milk and to not burn it at the bottom consider using a thick bottomed kadhai and you are safe!
–> Try the chilled version with kulfi and some chopped cadbury chocolates for another heavenly experience
–>Adding the raisins while cooking helps them swell up which many love to eat that way only
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