Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Basundhi(Paneer kheer) - I call it heaven!



Ever since Sujatha of Spicykhazana posted paneer kheer recipe, I have been dreaming about it. I call this dessert-Basundhi. I usually make it by stirring whole milk and sugar for atleast an hour. But this recipe was much easier and consumed less time than the original method.
Thanks to Sujatha! I love Basundhi from hotel-Saravana bhavan. It tastes out of the world. My mom makes awesome Basundhi too.

I modified the recipe to suit my taste.

Sending this to Aparna's one year of blogging celebrations and Srilekha's EFM Sweets.

Ingredients:

Half and half(full fat milk)-1.5 cups

Evaporated milk-1.5 cups

Grated paneer-1 cup

Sugar-1/4 cup(or according to your taste)

Cardamom- 1/4 tsp

Saffron- a few strands

Method:

Boil half and half. When it raises, lower the heat, add evaporated milk. Let the mixture continue to cook on low flame for 15 minutes(stir every 2 minutes). Add paneer, sugar, saffron and cardamom now. Mix well and continue heating on medium low flame stirring frequently until the mixture becomes very thick(time varies from 10-20 minutes). The mixture would have reduced by 1/2 in volume now. It will look semi solid. After refrigerating, it will become even more thick. Garnish with nuts and seve cold.

Note:1. Use a non stick pan.

2. Evaporated milk and Sugar can be replaced by condensed milk. I like to add evaporated milk because I can control the amount of sugar.

3. Amount of milk and evaporated milk can be reduced to 1 cup each to get the desired basundhi consistency in lesser time. Quantity of paneer may be increased from 1 cup to 1.5 cups. How about that? I am going to try this proportion next time.