Caribbean Beat — November/December 2021 (#167)

need to know
Rasmalai, a delicate cardamom-flavoured
dessert popular in India
ManaswiPatil/Shutterstock.com
All About …
Divali treats
Observed this year on 4 November, Divali — the Hindu festival of light and
renewal — honours Mother Lakshmi, the deity of wealth and purity, and the
triumph of light over darkness, good over evil. Celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago,
Guyana, Suriname, and other Caribbean territories usually include visiting the
homes of relatives to share in scrumptious meals and distributing sweets to
friends and neighbours. You probably know the most popular treats, like kurma,
barfi, and gulab jamun. But the repertoire of traditional Indian sweets is much
larger. Have you tried any of these?
Kulfi
Best known as the Indian version of
ice cream, kulfi has a luxuriously dense
texture, not whipped soft. Traditionally,
the recipe is laborious, but you can use
full cream and cornstarch to knock off
some hours. Evaporate the milk, add
sugar, cardamom, saffron, and chopped
nuts, then cool. Place the mixture in a
popsicle mould and freeze for about
twelve hours. When set, drizzle with
pistachios and serve.
Kalakand
Widely sold on the street in India
but hardly made at home, kalakand
has an ideal consistency somewhere
between cake and fudge. It’s made via
a reduction of milk and sugar, and can
take hours of constant stirring. If you
don’t have much time, condensed milk,
homemade paneer, and cardamom will
get you similar results in less than an
hour. Top with pistachios.
Rasmalai
This Bengali dessert immerses delicate
cottage cheese balls in a creamy milky
syrup. It’s one of the healthiest sweets
served for Divali, due to its low sugar
and low sodium content. To prepare it,
curdle milk flavoured with cardamom
to form the cottage cheese balls, then
boil them in syrup made from sugar,
cream, saffron, and more milk. The balls
will soak up the syrup, then you can chill
them and garnish with pistachios. The
end result resembles a soft dumpling
that melts in your mouth.
Mysore Pak
This delicacy was first made in 1935 for
the king of Mysuru (or Mysore) — a city
in Karnataka state. Legend says the
palace’s chief chef Kaksura Madappa
prepared lunch for the king, but ran
out of time while he brainstormed
an unusual dessert. Madappa mixed
generous amounts of ghee, sugar, and
gram flour to a syrupy consistency
and plated it. When the king was ready
for his dessert, the syrup had partially
solidified and resembled fudge — and
the rest is history. Traditionally, mysore
pak is served at weddings and special
occasions in southern India.
Lyangcha
You may have heard of gulab jamun,
but do you know its cousin lyangcha,
beloved in Bengal? Shaktigarh — the
lyangcha capital — has thirty shops
on both sides of Delhi Street, each
claiming to serve the best variety.
Prepared with paneer and cheese-like
khowa, this cylindrical sweet is coated
with sugar syrup and fried in ghee.
SAI
14
WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM