Broken Wheat Rava Kesari \ Godhuma Rava Kesari

Rava Kesari is the most common sweet as we all know. I just wanted to try out the same with the broken wheat rava. Its almost similar to the Sathyanarayana Swami pooja Prasadam. I followed the same method of preparing Kesari except that I cooked the broken wheat initially before mixing it with the Sugar Syrup. As broken wheat is highly nutritious, this Kesari is definitely a very healthy sweet for everyone. Though it takes little extra time than the normal Kesari, its worth for its benefits.

Ingredients

Broken wheat / Dalia - 1 Cup

Sugar - 1 Cup

Kesari Powder / Food Colour Powder - 1 pinch

Elachi / Cardamom Seeds / Elakai - 4 or 5

Pista Seeds - 5 or 6 crushed.

Dry Grapes / Raisins - 1 tbsp

Cashew Nuts - 2 tbsp

Ghee - 3 tbsp

Method

• Roast the Broken Wheat Rava with little ghee for couple of minutes and cook it with some water.
• Mean time, in a thick vessel, make a sugar syrup by adding Sugar and little water. Add the Kesar food colour, cardamom powder into the Syrup. Keep it ready.
• When the Broken wheat is fully cooked, then slowly add the Sugar Syrup into the kadai. Keep stirring the Kesari constantly in order to avoid any lumps.
• Add the crushed pista powder and 1 tbsp of ghee into the Kesari. Mix them well.
• Do the cooking on a medium flame. Roast the Cashew nuts and raisins with little bit of ghee and add them into the Kesari.
• Add the remaining ghee into the Kesari and mix it upside down uniformly.
• Now the Kesari is ready for Neivadhyam.

Tips / Variations

You can add more sugar and ghee according to your taste. If its for a party or festival, you can generously add more ghee to the Kesari to make it richer. If you have some saffron at home, you can add 1/2 tsp of Saffron flowers into the Kesari. This would give us a nice aroma and the taste of the Kesari would be unique.

Bajji Platter

Bajjis are the mostly served snacks on Jaanavasam, the day before marriage in South India. On a snowy, wintery day, it will be an ideal choice to have some hot bajjis with a side of hot tea. Though bajjis are fried snacks and made with besan flour and are highly caloric, still they are tasty and mouth watering.....Well, my daughter has been asking me to make her favourite potato bajji since few weeks....and somehow it was not working out...Finally her dream came true..I made her more potato bajjis and few..chilli bajjis for my husband too. Believe me, its really difficult to resist our feelings and we did not care so much about our calorie counts on that day.!!!!

Ingredients

Potato - 3 or 4 Medium

Green Peppers - 3 or 4.

Besan Flour / Kadalai Maavu / Senapindi - 1 cup.

Rice Flour - 3 tbsp.

Red Chilli Powder - 1 tsp

Jeera powder - 1/2 tsp

Salt - To Taste

Hing / Asafoetida - 1 Dash

Omum Seeds / Ajwain Seeds - 1 tsp

Oil - Enough to fry the Bajjis.

Method

• Wash and peel the skin of potatoes and slice them into thin rounds and put them in a bowl of hot water with some salt.
• Likewise, cut or slice the hot peppers as per your choice and put them into a separate bowl of hot water with little salt. I mainly did these steps to half cook the veggies inside and its easier for the kids to have them.
• In a vessel, add the besan flour, salt, required powders and make a smooth paste enough to coat the veggies with some water. Let the paste be not too watery..
• In a frying kadai, add some oil and heat it. When the oil gets heated up, dip the potato rounds into the bajji batter and drop them carefully into the heated oil one by one. While dropping the bajjis, reduce the flame to a low level and after dropping all the bajjis, increase the flame to a medium.
• When the bajjis turn golden brown on both sides, take them out and drain them on a flat plate with a paper tissue on it to soak the oil coming out of the bajjis...
• Similarly, soak the Hot peppers too into the batter and make Mirchi Bajjis and drain them out on a plate.
• Now the bajji platter is ready to eat with a side of tea.

Tips / Variations

You can make bajjis with any kind of vegetables like Brinjal, Onions, Zucchini, Raw banana, Paneer.

You can increase the quantity of chilli powder as per your spice level.