Firni, the floral fruity dessert that's easy to make

Tired of custard? Try firni instead.

Phirni

Phirni or firni, with a lovely aroma of either kewra or rose, is the  of the most floral desserts I’ve come across. It does wonder to one's senses. In every way !And it is one I make when racing against time, which is pretty often.

It is a truly oriental dish, famous in many old towns, particularly those with walled cities. In Amritsar, as I am sure in Lucknow or Bhopal, it is served in a “kullar”—that environment friendly dessert bowl, made of clay, and emanating a lovely wet earth fragrance as it is taken out of a bucket of water. It is garnished with pistachios sometimes, and sometimes with rose petals. Dry fruits are optional.

What gives it that floral taste or fragrance is the essence  generally used. Either kewra—the botanical name is Pandanus fascicularis Lamk.—screw pine in English, and “thazhamboo” in Tamil. Or

rose, the  simple country rose that has a fruity fragrance.

Soak rice/broken rice for an hour

Here goes the receipe:

Broken rice(never mind if you have only whole rice)- 4 tablespoons full

Milk-Half a litre

Sugar-4 tablespoons

Essence- a few drops

Cardamom- two

Dry fruits optional —pista or almonds/raisins 

Fresh rose petals-- a handful

Grind in a blender with a bit of milk

Soak the rice in water for half an hour, grind it fine in a little bit of milk. Keep aside.

Boil M

Bring the milk to boil in a hard bottomed pan, reduce the flame to the minimum and add the ground rice, stirring continuously so that no lumps are formed. 

It will thicken to coat the spoon.

Five minutes later, take it off the stove, and add the sugar and the essence.

  

Once it cools, transfer it to serving bowl or dessert bowls—it will be great if you can find some “kullars”, and garnish, chill for six hours before serving.

Garnished with dry fruit and rose petals

As you can see, I have garnished it with rose petals which I have dried in shade, and stored in a glass jar.

But the fragrance , touch ,feel and taste of dew kissed deep punish red fresh petals, the desi roja, is quite something else. Uplifting!

Hope to update this with the firni in the earthen "kullars" whenever I lay hands on a few.

Brunch on Sundays

Sundays should be light days for those who cook for the family, throwing in all the love for the partners and children, and friends if any, apart from throwing away the bit of leisure time they could have got. Brunch is a great idea.

But the Brunch that comes with the Hindustan Times on Sundays  is something I look forward to with as much of an appetite built up over the week. Nice, light reading, good pictures. One may not agree with a lot in it, but nevertheless …

Today’s Indulge column by Vir Sanghvi, took me back to my childhood. He writes about a dessert stylishly called Floating Island, and for good measure, he has given a couple of recipes as well. And of course, he talks about the way different renowned chefs made it the world over.

The floating island is basically a gooey custard in which  meringues are floated. The  lighter the meringue, the tastier the custard, more the style and presentation, the better the Floating Island is.

I’ve eaten it many times without knowing till today that it was called the Floating Island.

Life with my parents—my father is a retired Brigadier-- in the cantonments, was all about  parties. People were coming home or my parents were going out. Once in a while, children were included. And I generally looked out for two things. One was a show stopper on the dining table—there invariably was one. The other was the desert.

I remember Guddy aunty  serving us what looked like Rasmalai. But she told us that it was custard, and what was floating in it was made of stiffly beaten white egg with sugar, cooked in milk, and floated into the custard. There was vanilla too..

A rose by any other name. Floating Island by any other name. It tastes good always. Now I am going to eat it at the earliest opportunity.