Sprinkle And Stir: Kuch meetha ho jaye?

It feels so good being able to blog after such a long time. You might have noticed, I have shifted base. Actually, I am in the middle of rearranging everything - virtually and real-ly(??!!) Thats why I have been missing in action for a while.

So why Sprinkle And Stir? It spoke to me, spoke a lot about my style of cooking."A pinch of this and dash of that, sprinkle and stir" makes a whole world of difference of to any dish. I do that alot - there has to be one last pinch! Pinch and dash was already taken........phbbbt. Anyways, I wanted to dedicate one whole blog solely to food and food only. Please update your bookmarks and blog feeders. Those who follow by email, I will send email subscription request to you mail ids. I have ported my recipes to this blog. I will be maintaining both my blogs but for different purpose.

Have you seen that Cadbury's Dairy Milk ad - Shubh Arambh. The idea is same. Start something new with meetha and that would be Kalakand..

Whaaaaaat!!!! Yes exactly.......... I know, I know what you mean. But not having access to our desi delights inspired me to try making some of them. Last year on Rakhi, it was rasgulla and this year, I tried making Kalakand. Alhtough late in posting, but Diwali is coming up and you can make this delicious sweet right at your home. You can control the sweetness to your taste - that I think is best part for people like me who like to enjoy sweets without being too sweet!

First attempt it tasted no where near the delicious sweet. It was more sweet paneer. Then I got to know from an aunt, its all about timing - when to add paneer, when to add sugar, when to take it off heat. You can check out the whole process in action at Manjula's Kitchen. This is where I got the recipe from. Its quite simple. All you need is milk, sugar and vinegar to make the basic sweet. Then dress it up anyway you want - go "nuts" with it.

Are you drooling enough? Time for shubh aarambh :- )

Ingredients

2 quarts of milk divided

1/2 cup sugar (more or less according to your taste)

2-3 tbsp white vinegar (use lemon if you prefer that)

Coarsely chopped nuts for garnishing (optional)

Get Cooking

Boil one quart of milk and reduce it to approximately 1/5 amount. Make sure to stir frequently, scraping its bottom. In another pan, heat other quart of milk to almost boiling point. Turn ooff the heat and start adding vinegar in slow trickle to milk until it curdles. Once you see almost clear whey, drain it. Wash the paneer in cold water and hang the paneer for a little while to take out most of the liquid.

Add paneer to reduced milk and stir constantly until it forms a soft dough. Add sugar and let liquid dry up - but not for long. You will end up with chewy paneer and not kalakand (that tastes good too). Sugar has to be added almost at the end.

Thats it. Shape the dough into a square on a greased platter to desired thickness.

Garnish with nuts if you want. Let it rest until completely cool.

Cut into pieces and pop one in your mouth ◄ absolutely necessary step!!!

Notes:

If kalakand still wet (as you will notice in one of the picture) after shaping it, zap it in microwave for couple of minutes or so. I will do so next time. Yup there is a sticky in my head LOL!!!!!

Sending this to lots of Diwali events. Check them out, you will find lots of goodies to try out this festival season.