Kheer

Kheer

One of the best Indian deserts, easy to make and absolutely delicious to eat. Well, it does take some time (close to an hour) to cook, and I had been thinking for days about making Kheer or reading the MBA stuff. As usual, Kheer won!!

Looks like I will be a manager who would have lot of food to offer to employees ;) Hehehe. Just Kidding!!

Well, to keep it short, lets quickly go through what we need and how do we make it. 

What we need for Kheer (Approximately 4 bowls):

• 1 litre milk (half-cream milk / letmælk or fullcream milk / sødmælk) (I used Letmælk)
• 1/2 cup rice basmati or small rice
• Nuts, whichever you like - Cashew nuts, Almonds, Raisins etc. 
• 1 big Bay Leaf
• 1 tbsp Ghee
• 3.5 tbsp sugar
• Saffron (3-4 strands)

How to make it: 
I first boiled the milk. When the milk is a few minutes from boiling I added the bay leaf in it and let it boil. Once boiled,  I set it aside. 

Then I took a bowl and heated the ghee in it, taking care that it doesn't burn. Then I added the nuts and raisins, and took them out once they are bloated up. 

In the same bowl, I added the rice and stirred them carefully so that the grain doesn't break. When the rice grains are translucent, I took this off the flame and added 2-3 tbsp of boiled milk it it. Finally added this rice-milk mixture to the bigger portion of boiled milk. 

Now I added the nuts, keeping some back for final garnishing. At this point, I also added the saffron strands, and put this whole mixture back on medium heat. 

Now its all about patience and stirring the kheer from time to time making sure that the milk neither boils over nor gets burnt at the bottom of the pan. 

After almost 1 hour, the milk starts to thicken and give a nice color. At this stage, I added the sugar and let it heat for some more time, stirring continuously. I like to leave Kheer a little less thick towards the end, as it gets thicker when cooled. So once it was enough thick, I took it off the flame and let it come to normal temperature. 

Then I added the remaining nuts & raisins to garnish and placed the bowl in refrigerator for cooling off. :)

We are done. Some people like Kheer Hot. I like it chilled, and you may choose whichever way you like to eat it. 

Tip: In the southern parts of India, people sometimes also garnish Kheer with coconut powder, and that also tastes awesome.