Saturday, August 06, 2011

Nolen Gur Payesh

You know how these bloggers are! They tease you with their creations and you stay haunted for days, months and years. When I visited Kolkata some years ago, it was March and Nolen Gur was not yet made. It is a winter speciality. Acually I did not know much about Nolen gur till then. I just thought it was yet another obsessions the Mishti loving Bongs had. Then one day I got to taste Nolen gur Rosgullas a colleague had flown in a huge box for the team. I simply loved it.

You can only imagine my excitement when I spotted it in our next door mall. I was super thrilled! I even found a packet of premixed panch phoran. I used to make my own and at times when I did not have kalo jeero I'd sulk that my phoran was not a complete panch. On this day I got lucky and will display yet another find in the upcoming post. Now getting back to the recipe of the payesh I made today... Well Payesh is a festive preparation and that too the one with Nolen gur is almost sacred I understand from Bong Mom. While Sayantani has all these ideas for using Nolen Gur in her spectacular post on Sandesh with this magic ingredient.

While there are lots of recipes here is mine a fast track one.

Ingredients
1 cup cooked rice
1/2 litre whole milk
75 gms Nolen Gur
1 teaspoon Ghee
crushed nuts like almond, chashew, pista etc.

Bring the milk to a boil in a large vessel. Now measure out 1 cup soft cooked rice. Add it to the boiling milk. Keep stirring so that the milk does not foam and boil over. Let the rice crumble into the milk a bit and allow it to thicken just slightly. Put off the heat after simmering it for about 15-20 mins. Now it is time to add Nolen Gur, to help it dissolve easily crush the gur. Keep stirring till dissolved completely. As the gur dissolves it will lend the payesh a custard like consistency and color. Like Sayantani I too am a succor for delicate flavors so avoid using any other aromatics but am sure Sandeepa's addition of bayleaf is a good variation. Lastly top the payesh with a spoonful of pure ghee. Stir in the crushed nuts and raisin to add a crunch to your gooey treat.

Dad loves sweets and so he had seconds of this Bengali speciality. I am going to save this star ingredient in the fridge and try it out it in all possible mishti! Next would be Doi, its planned already.

6 comments:

  1. ohhh thats delicious Anjali. when we left Bangalore gave 5 kgs of this to friends and now its difficult to get it here. was planning to make some ice cream. awaiting more of such delicious post with this magic ingredient.

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  2. Sayantani you are one of those bloggers that inspire me to cook bengali cuisine and the gulab bagh is something that I can only aspire to do and the Nasksha boris forget it I cannot even attempt them! Besides you have always been so warm how I wish we had met while you were here in Blr, we almost did last Durga pujo.

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  3. Okay not being picky or anything but just my two cents because my family is anal about Paayesh (me being the only one who cared about it the least until like 5 years back :)

    Cook the rice IN the milk. DO NOT add cooked rice. Before adding the rice, smear the grains with ghee so that they don't clump together. If you can reduce the milk so that it becomes a thicker consistency the taste is even better.

    All said and done, the way you like to cook and eat it, should be the best way :-D

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  4. And Anjali, just read one of your previous posts about your health. Hope you are doing better now.

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  5. Sandeepa! That's the payesh fanatic out there :);) Will take your advice when in an indulgent mood. Thanks for asking am much better now.

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  6. Thanks so much, Anjali! For leading me to this post. I'm tring to find it in Bombay with your help and BM's help. Both of you are awesome!

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