4 cup milk
1 tbsp long grained rice
4 whole cardomom pods, slightly crushed
1 tbsp sugar
10 pistachios, unsalted and slivered,, plus a few for g
Directions
Combine themilk, rice, and cardamom pods in a
heavy-bottomed pot. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat
and reduce the milk until you have 2 cups.* This may
take 1-1 1/4 hours. Turn off heat. Remove cardamom
pods and discard. Add sugar and nuts, Mix well and
leave to cool. Mix again and pour into a serving
bowl. Decorate with a few more slivered pistachios on
top. Cover bowl with light plastic wrap. Refrigerate.
Serve cold.
*Note: How to boil milk down
1 Use a very heavy-bottomed pot. Cast iron or
aluminium covered with porcelain.
2 Since the process is slow and tedious bring a chair
and book to stove. 3 Bring the milk to an "almost"
boil. Watch it. If you let it boil over you will
have a big mess to clean. As soon as it seems that
the milk will start to boil and rise, turn heat sown
to medium low. 4 Adjust heat so that milk is always
bubblingm but will not boil over. 5 Once the milk has
begun its slow boil, settle down with your book. Stir
milk every few minutes. 6 If a creamy crust forms on
top, just stir it into the milk. It will taste fine
when cold.
Source:Madhur Jaffrey's "An Invitation to Indian
Cooking" (Vintage) Formatted by Lisa Crawford, Easter
1996
Servings: 4 servings
Kheer Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Asian; Indian
The History of Recipes
We can track the history of meal recipes way back into ancient history, certainly as far back into history as early Egypt, and possibly even further than that. Having said that, sadly, these old cookbooks were just simple hieroglyphic or cunieform instructions for preparing food.
In fact, the oldest recipe discovered, according to Professor Solomon Katz, is a collection of ancient tablets in Sumerian which describe the making of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as having made those who drank it feel blissful and exhilarated. Progressing into The time of the roman empire 25BC a man called Apicius compiled some scripts detailing recipes enjoyed by the Romans. In his publication, Apicius tells us how the meals were separated into starters, main course and desserts, a style of dining still practiced today. This early Roman chef recounts how the Roman cooks used many different herbs, including a few that will be familiar to modern cooks like basil, fennel and asafoetida. Later, we have a couple of recipe books which appeared in the 14th Century : one book entitled `Forme of Cury`, and another titled `Curye on Inglish`. Amusingly, they are not about the indian curry that is popular today, but rather accounts of the types of meals prepared by the cooks of the rich and powerful of that time. Later on in the 1400s, knights returning from the crusades brought us a variety of foods and herbs from the holy lands, such as basil and rosemary. These new spices and herbs was responsible for a torrent in books on cookery, many of which still exist in private cookery archives. For the centuries that followed, the rich families of Europe competed to serve up the most extravagent meals, and consequentially cooks and their collection of recipes were greatly in demand. Even so, it was during the nineteenth century that fine cooking and recipe collections really came of age. Mrs Isabella Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Farmer in the US, devoted their lives to collating, verifying, and publishing recipes to help cooks of their time. By the time we get to the 20th century, recipe books were highly popular mostly as a result of better eduction, people having more spare time and being a little richer. The introduction of the TV brought us TV cooks and the demand for the accompanying recipe books. Which brings us neatly up to date and the invention of the internet, permitting everyone to access thousands of recipes like those on this web site. |
We hope you enjoy this Kheer recipe.
