I had a love-hate relationship with HOLI as a child. I would be wait for Holika-Dahan with all my heart only to hide in my room all day long, the next day. Our neighbors had this huge yard at the back of their house where we would spend hours assembling the logs, branches, twigs and what ever (that we had collected from a lot of places) into a triangle-shaped structure – Holika. It’s almost like those days of ours had a purpose other than playing games. Like Eklavya ( I know! I can exaggerate!) we had our eyes on the triangle and triangle only. Nothing bothered us then- hunger, thirst, thorns on our hands, torn clothes, worn-out slippers and not even a ginormous sunburn. We just had one mission in mind and we wouldn’t stop unless we were done.
Once we had our Holika stand all tall and proud, we would discuss endlessly how the temple’s effort was a sorry one compared to ours. (I am sorry that we weren’t too humble as kids when it came to Holika but the truth is that ours was wayyyy better. The statement is not for the Holika itself but for the efforts put behind it.) Then, with our hearts swelling with pride and happiness bursting out of every pore of our being, we would invite the elders of our family to do puja of our masterpiece before they headed to the temple. Thank God for our neighbors, we got an opportunity to do something like that. I wish that upon every kid!!!
But all of that would change the next day when I sat in my room with locked doors refusing to be a part of the ‘Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the most colorful of them all?’ game. I could not understand the fun in first applying the brightest and the weirdest and the most ‘pakka’ colors of all on our faces only to spend hours scrubbing our skin off to take them off a few hours later. I understood and loved the concept of applying colors but was never a willing participant in it :). For me Holi is and always will be about love and brotherhood, fun, laughter and home-made sweets. So, on the recommendation of my dear friend Divya, one of the sweets that I prepared for this Holi is Paneer Kheer and have to say, loved every bite of it. If you think it tastes like Nutty Rabri, you won’t be entirely wrong. Super delicious and healthy, believe me!! Happy Holi to everyone!!
Ingredients
- 6 cups milk ( I used 2%)
- Vinegar as needed
- 2 cups 2% Milk
- 3 cups whole Milk
- 208 gms Paneer
- 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
- 32 gms Almonds, blanched, peeled and sliced
- 18 gms Pistachios, sliced
- 1/4 cup plus 3 tbsp. Condense milk
- Saffron strands
- Silver Varak (optional)
Instructions
- Boil 6 cups milk for paneer in a pan. When it comes to a boil, turn off the stove. Add vinegar until whey separates.
- Drain into muslin cloth and collect the milk solids. Wash the solids well with water to remove the taste of vinegar. Squeeze out excess water and put something heavy on it for 10-15 minutes to drain water further.
- Crumble the paneer with hands and keep aside.
- In 2 tbsp. milk, dissolve saffron. Saffron is used as per the color you want I wanted the kheer to have a beautiful yellow color so I used it accordingly.
- In a separate pot, add milk (both kinds), cardamom powder, almonds, pistachios and saffron milk. Let it reduce to 3/4th the original amount.
- Add condense milk, paneer crumbles and reduce it further until it remains half the original amount. Turn off the stove. Dish it out and garnish with saffron, varak and some nuts. Refrigerate it until chilled and enjoy.
Notes
Paneer and nuts are added with the milk so that their raw flavor goes away.
You can use all whole milk instead of 2% milk.
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Preeti Bordia
Will totally try this one!!! Am a sucker for sweets
more than curry
🙂
Rajendra Aggarwal
Looking delicious
more than curry
thanks pa!
sanchita
Lovely writing… and divya’s paneer kheer is one of our favourites…tastes heavenly always.. good to now have it in writing..:D
morethancurry
I agree on that too 🙂
Divya Chawla
Nidhi Goyal finally! This looks so good and even better than what I manage!
more than curry
Now thats a compliment i will cherish!!!
Neha Kansal
Very nice Nidhi boss ! I will make it this holi . So we don’t have to add sugar to it ? Also was not clear on quantity of condense milk .. Is it 1/4th cup? Thanks for posting this .. I love ur write ups as well !
more than curry
Thank you Neha. ya, no need to add sugar. and its 1/4 cup plus 3 tbsp. of condense milk. 🙂
Neha Kansal
cool thx !
Saloni Sharma
Yummy
more than curry
Thank u 🙂