Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Pineapple kesari & Award time!





Kesari is a very common sweet in the south. In those dinasour days when arranged marriages were very common, like the one I had.  kesari was a staple sweet on the menu when a boy comes to see the girl and their family for the first time.

The belief was the first encounter should begin with sweet memories....if people were expecting beautiful ladies clad in a white angel like clothes to be singing, sorry doesn't happen that way!
Well, it did not happen that way for me though :((

If any one had better experiences please fell free to share!

Anyway enough of my blah.. blah.. Lets get tour kesari.

This is a straight forward kesari with pineapple in it. I guess you can make any fruit flavored kesari wtih mango, banana,strawberry etc...

What I used:

1/2 cup rawa or semolina
1/2 cup pineapple pureed with small chunks ( i used i cup of chopped pineapples to make this)
2 cups hot water water
Yellow food color or very little amount of kesari color. (hard to measure, eyeball till your desired color is obtained)
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup ghee or clarified butter + 2 tsp for roasting the rawa
1 tbsp broken cashew pieces
3- 4 green cardamom seeds powdered.

How I did it:

  • In a pan  ( preferrably non stick) roast rawa till light brown or fragrant.
  • Add 2 cups of water to the rawa and cook till the rawa is done well. The reason I used hot water is to prevent the rawa from forming clumps.
  • Add the kesari color.
  • Add the pureed pineapple mixture.
  • Once the rawa is well cooked add the sugar and stir well.
  • You may notice that the mix becomes thin, bit that's normal.
  • Keep stirring or cooking for a few minutes.
  • In a nother pan by the side aheat ghee and fry the cashews till golden.
  • Add the ghee to the rawa and mix and cook till the kesari does not stick to the pan.
  • With non stick pan, it's kinda hard to say, when it does not stick.
  • The trick is take a small piece of kesari without burning your fingers and try to roll into a small ball. If it does not stick to your hands, it's done.
  • Add cardamom powder and garnish with any nuts you want.

You'll feel a little tartness from the pineapple, but that's what is special about this kesari.

I am so happy and honored to receive this loving blogger award from satya.  This is my first award and i am on cloud 9! She is an excellent blogger and brings out dishes so innovatively! Thank you so much Satya!

I would like to share this with 3 bloggers who admire a lot! It was hard to choose 3 people as there are some excellent bloggers out there!
Mriganayani needs no introduction to bloggers out there. She is amazing and I lover her attention to details. i admire her patience to take step by step pics of evrything that she cooks. I can never do that bcoz when I start to cook, eberyone in my family need me for something or the other.

Ediblegarden has been my teacher about some steps in photography! Constantly used to visit her site before I started blogging! She has really simple and excellent recipes in her space.
Redchillies amazes me with her beautiful pictures and simple and elegant recipes. Again she was one bloggers who inspired me to start food blogging.

Thanks for all your support and encouragements!

BTW I took pics today with my i phone! How does it look??




11 comments:

  1. Kesari looks very colorful and delicious.
    Congrats on your first blog award.Pics from your iphone look very good.

    Thank you for your concern regarding my sprain,I am slowly getting better.Advil and massages did help for sure.

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  2. hi,

    Pineapple kesari looks yummy yummyyy... Just love it...

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  3. Priya....Thank You Thank You! Wow - that was a wonderful gesture from you! I'm grateful for the nice introduction.

    Love your Pineapple Kesari. And yes...this was there for my ponnu pakardhu too.. And it was delicious - full of ghee...and I think we both said yes to the kesari - but they got us married anyways! LOL

    Congrats on your award and Thanks for passing it on.

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  4. this looks incredible and amazing..first ime here and following u....lovely colr and presentation...u hv an awesome blog..wil come more often..tc

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  5. lovely presentation and yummy recipe. Congrats on your award priya..
    there is an award waiting 4 u in my blog too, plz come n collect it dear :)

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  6. Congrats on ur award, kesari makes me drool and very tempting..

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  7. That doesn't look like an iphone picture at all :) Keep up the great work and thank you so much for the award!!

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  8. ok, I hate it when blogspot does it to me. I wrote a nice comment and it just ate it up :(

    Anyways, I was saying, I have no idea of that sweet memory thingy as mine wasn't a traditional marriage ;)

    I made this exact pineapple kesari over the weekend. You iPhone pics look great. Is it iPhone 4?

    Congrats on your beautiful award.

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  9. Thank you so much for the sweet words and for the award Priya. You made my day. Hugs!
    The picture is very clear with good contrast as well.

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  10. this rava kesari looks simple delicious ...never tried kesari with any fruits ...looks very tempting ...u know something priya after engagement my hubby visit me once n i wanted to prepare some dessert for him but he mentioned he love karela !!! which i hate the most ...i make stuffed karela for him and he enjoyed like he is having some nice dessert ...its so funny know but then i realized every body has his own taste n we should respect that .....
    btw thankq so much priya for ur lovely words about me ...it means a lot to me

    Satya
    http://www.superyummyrecipes.com

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  11. hi priya.. first time here... congrats on ur award and wish u get many more...
    i've a different memory related to this dessert.. dis was the only sweet dish served at my office canteen which i liked d most.. Although the lunch will be Yuck!! but they make yummy pineapple kesari.. So I used to have lunch from office wit a hope tat today dey will serve my favo kesari... Gr8 to find dis recipe here..

    http://rasoithekitchen.blogspot.com/

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