Reducing sugar works best by building flavour elsewhere: toast the grain, reduce the milk, use ripe fruit, and add fragrance (cardamom, fennel, saffron), then finish with a pinch of salt. Serve warm, where sweetness is easiest to taste, and in small portions.
Cardamom and walnut jhangora kheer
Barnyard millet in reduced milk, with unrefined sweetness
Reducing the milk concentrates its natural sweetness, so the pudding needs about 40 g of jaggery for a litre, against 100 g or more of sugar in a typical kheer. Jaggery goes in off the heat so it does not curdle the milk.
Ingredients
- 1 L full-fat milk
- 50 g jhangora, washed
- 1 tsp ghee
- 40 g jaggery, grated
- 4 green cardamom pods, seeds freshly ground
- A pinch of saffron
- 30 g walnuts, toasted and chopped
- 4 dates, chopped (optional)
Method
- Toast the millet in the ghee on low heat for 2 min.
- Bring the milk to a simmer in a heavy pan and reduce for 15 min, stirring often so it does not catch. Add the millet and cook, stirring, 35–40 min until the grains are tender and the kheer is creamy.
- Dissolve the jaggery in 3 tbsp hot water, strain it, and cool the kheer for 5 min. Stir in the jaggery syrup, cardamom and saffron.
- Add walnuts and dates. Serve warm or chilled; it thickens as it cools, so loosen with milk.
Buransh pue
Fried hill pancakes with half the jaggery, finished with petal syrup
Traditional pue takes about 100 g of jaggery for 200 g flour. This version uses 50 g plus a ripe banana, and finishes with a tart buransh syrup and a little honey stirred in once it has cooled.
Ingredients
- Pue
- 150 g atta
- 50 g fine semolina
- 50 g jaggery, grated
- 1 ripe banana (about 80 g), mashed
- 1 tsp fennel seed, freshly crushed
- ¼ tsp ground cardamom
- A pinch of salt
- About 200 ml warm water or milk
- 150 ml ghee for frying
- Buransh syrup
- 15 g dried buransh petals
- 150 ml water
- 20 g jaggery
- 2 tbsp (30 g) honey
Method
- Dissolve the jaggery in 100 ml warm water, strain and cool. Mix flour, semolina, banana, fennel, cardamom and salt, adding the jaggery water and more liquid for a thick dropping batter. Rest 20 min.
- For the syrup, simmer the petals in the water 10 min, strain, stir in the jaggery and reduce to about 60 ml. Cool to below 40 °C, then stir in the honey.
- Heat the ghee in a small kadai to about 170 °C: a drop of batter should sink, then rise in 3–4 seconds.
- Drop in 2 tbsp batter, flatten gently, and fry 2 min per side until deep gold. Drain.
- Drizzle each pue with a teaspoon of the syrup before serving.
Safety: use only petals of Rhododendron arboreum from a source you trust. Do not use wild rhododendron nectar or honey sold as ‘mad honey’: rhododendron nectar can contain grayanotoxins, which are poisonous. Use ordinary honey of known origin, and never give honey to children under one year.
Amla and jaggery bal mithai truffles
Slow-roasted milk solids, barely sweet
Bal mithai is brown, caramelised khoya traditionally coated in sugar balls. Here the sweetness is dark jaggery, the tartness is dried amla, and the coating is toasted hemp seed. The jaggery goes in off the heat so the khoya stays smooth.
Ingredients
- 250 g unsweetened khoya (mawa)
- 1 tbsp ghee
- 40 g dark jaggery, powdered
- 1 tbsp (10 g) amla powder
- ¼ tsp cardamom, freshly ground
- 3 tbsp hemp seeds, lightly toasted, for coating
Method
- Crumble the khoya into the ghee in a heavy pan. Roast on the lowest heat 12–15 min, stirring, until it turns light brown and sandy.
- Take it off the heat and cool 5 min. Stir in the jaggery, amla powder and cardamom until just combined.
- Roll into 20 small balls while still warm, then roll in the hemp seeds.
- Chill 30 min. Keeps 5 days in the fridge.
Mandua and til ladoo
Roasted millet, sesame and dates, with about half the usual jaggery
Roasting the flour thoroughly is the whole recipe: raw finger millet tastes of dust, and roasted it tastes of malt and nuts. Dates add sweetness and bind the ladoo without more jaggery.
Ingredients
- 150 g mandua flour
- 60 g white or black sesame, toasted
- 3 tbsp ghee (45 g)
- 70 g jaggery, grated
- 4 dates (about 30 g), soaked 15 min and puréed
- 20 g walnuts, chopped
- ¼ tsp cardamom, freshly ground
Method
- Roast the flour in 2 tbsp of the ghee over low heat 8–10 min, stirring, until it darkens a shade and smells nutty. Stir in the sesame and cool 10 min.
- Warm the jaggery with 2 tbsp water on low heat until it melts to a thick syrup, about 3 min. Strain.
- Stir the syrup, date purée, remaining ghee, walnuts and cardamom into the flour. Mix well.
- When cool enough to handle, shape into 12 balls. If the mixture is crumbly, add a spoonful of warm milk. They firm up as they cool and keep 10 days in a tin.
Cardamom-poached chulu with yogurt and walnuts
Dried apricots in their own sweetness
No sugar is added: the dried apricots supply the sweetness, and the poaching liquid reduces to a syrup. Timur adds a faint citrus tingle.
Ingredients
- 12 dried apricots (chulu)
- 300 ml water
- 3 green cardamom pods, crushed
- 3 cm cassia bark
- 1 strip galgal or lemon peel
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 300 g thick yogurt
- 30 g walnuts, toasted
- A pinch of timur, freshly ground
Method
- Simmer the apricots with the water, cardamom, cassia and peel, covered, 15–20 min at this altitude until plump and tender.
- Lift out the apricots. Reduce the liquid to about 80 ml, stir in the lemon juice, and pour over the fruit. Cool.
- Serve with the yogurt, walnuts and a pinch of timur.