A guilty indulgence

One of Amit’s favorite sweet dishes, after gulab jamun of course, is basundi. And though it’s a very easy to make dish, I have never made it at home. So after yesterday’s resolution to blog atleast once a week, I realized that I can do better than that if I decide to set aside Sundays for my cooking adventures. So today I am going to make a few dishes which I will also write-up today, hopefully. And will then post it onto my blog gradually over the week. Not only will I have recipes to post over the week, but it also means that I will have food to stock up my refrigerator with and eat over the whole week. Hopefully most of the recipes will freeze well. So the first of the recipes for this week is Basundi.

This recipe takes quite some time to prepare so it’s a perfect sunday dessert. Though you don’t have to stand in front it all the time, you need to keep checking on it every 5 minutes. Since you are trying to reduce the quantity of milk, you need to make sure that you have a very thick bottomed saucepan. I actually place a skillet and place a pan on top of it. This ensures that the milk never sticks to the bottom. This serves about 2-3 persons. It took about 1-1.5 hours to prepare it from start to finish.

Ingredients:

1. 4 cups 2% milk
2. 1/3 cup powdered sugar (add a little at a time and adjust to taste)
3. 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
4. 1 pinch saffron (dissolved in 2 tablespoons of warm milk)
5. 1 teaspoon cardamom powder
6. almond, pistachio slivers for garnish

Directions:

• Place the milk in the saucepan (as described above) and set the flame to low. Let the milk reduce in quantity to half the initial amount.
• In the meanwhile, dissolve some saffron in a couple of tablespoons of warm milk.
• Once the milk has reduced to half the amount, add the sugar and whipping cream and let it simmer for another 15 minutes. You should add the sugar in smaller quantities and taste the milk before adding more just to make sure that the sweetness is to your liking.
• Now add the cardamom, saffron (dissolved in milk) and remove from heat.
• The basundi is now ready to serve.

I know this is a very calorie rich dessert. Someday I will try to make a less guilty version of it. But this time I just felt like having the familiar tasting Basundi. So no alterations to suit healthy eating habits. This is a very easy to make recipe and takes almost no effort if you manage to find a suitable saucepan which will prevent the milk from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Also remember to keep the flame on low all the time. This is very important firstly to ensure that the milk does not burn. Secondly to get the right flavor. Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we did.