Kheer / Rice pudding is a traditional sweet dish/ dessert, famous in most of the parts of India. It is made on special occasions as well as on usual days. Kheer is made with rice, milk and sugar but in this blog I’ll be sharing a healthier version of the Kheer. Wondering how? Well, by using Jaggery preferably Palm Date Jaggery. This is not my innovation rather this method is followed by many. Being a tricky method its rarely used but in this blog I’ll disclose the trick to master it.

Preparation Time: 10-15 minutes

Cooking Time: 45-50 minutes

Serves: 04

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Indian

Ingredients:

Sonachur Rice/ Arwa Rice                                                 ¼ cup/ 50g

Full Fat Milk                                                                         1 liters

Cashew Nuts                                                                         20g

Raisins                                                                                    10g

Palm Date Jaggery                                                                100g

Ghee                                                                                       1 ½ tsp

Water if required

Directions:

1. Wash the rice once with cold water, drain the water, spread the rice on a plate and let it air dry. Keep it aside.
2. Take the palm date jaggery and chop it into thin shards. Keep it aside.
3. Soak the raisins in the water and keep it aside. Also roast the cashew nuts on low heat in the ghee and keep it aside. Reserve the remaining ghee.
4. Take the milk in a deep pan and heat in on medium low heat. Bring the milk to boil. For me it took 15 minutes to boil.
5. Meanwhile when the rice is dried, coat the rice with ghee which will prevent the rice grains from sticking with each other when added to the milk.
6. When the rice comes to a boil, add the ghee coated rice to the milk. Stir and mix well to prevent the rice from forming lumps and cook the rice in the milk on low heat till the rice gets soft. If the kheer is cooked on high heat the rice won’t get cooked well.
7. Stir continuously on shor intervals while the kheer is getting cooked to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom. Cook the kheer till the rice gets soft and milk reduces and becomes thick.
8. To check whether the rice is cooked or not; take a rice grain and press it with your fingers. If the rice gets mashed easily its cooked if not then let it cook for some more time.
9. Also if the milk gets reduced and the rice is not yet cooked then add ¼ cup of water, mix well and let the kheer cook.
10. Once the rice gets soft and is cooked well add the roasted cashew nuts and soaked raisins. (Squeeze off the excess water from the soaked raisin and then add the raisins to the kheer.) Mix well.
11. Turn of the heat and then add the shards of the palm date jaggery. Well this is the trick! If jaggery is added to the kheer while on the heat, there are chances the milk will curdle.
12. Mix well after adding the jaggery and cover the pan with the lid to let the jaggery melt.
13. Mix well to incorporate the jaggery before serving. Serve hot or cold as a dessert.