Been following the stats on this blog and consistently the readership has been gender biased. More women, you say? Sorry, way off! the viewership is 55% men and 45 % women!! For a food site – that seems a bit of an unusual statistic.
But then i think back to Mills and Boon days – the brothers of all my friends used to sneakily read the stuff that sisters left lying around and both brothers and sisters sneakily reading it against mom’s exhortations – “that stuff will rot your brain!!!” M & Bs were strictly banned at home – though i did sneak a few from my cousin Devika (responsible for much of my education back then, Devi!!) so i don’t know whether my brothers would have read them too! I do remember reading prodigious quantities of J.T.Edson and “war comics” and Biggles – thanks to my brother Anand whose friend owned a library and so we got free readership! Then we progressed to Wodehouse and THEN – all other heroes paled in comparison! Arvind used to chuckle so hard over Pelham (Plum!) Grenville (still does, as a amatter of fact!), that many times he’s fallen off the chair/bed ! If it hadn’t been for the prodigious quantities of sweets that he used to put away and consequent padding of the bones, i bet he’d have broken a few bones!
Sweets! An underlying theme/meme/fatal weakness in the family and none more themed/memed/dying for sweets as my brother Arvind and my mom! – have seen them put away a whole kilogram of sweets in the space of a couple of hours!
“I’m… on… a…diet… didn’t… you… know… that??? Why… are… you… making… burfi??? The gaps in the sentence give him the time to put away yet another piece of the beloved coconut sweet – as he works his way through a large box of them a couple of years ago!
Diet or not – here’s the irresistable.
Coconut burfi
- Grated fresh coconut – 2 cups
- Sugar – 1.5 cups – powder in the mixer
- Cardamom – 5 – powdered. The easiest way to do this is in a small stone or iron pestle and mortar with 1/2 tsp of sugar.
- Milk – 2 tbsp
- Ghee to grease a large thaali or plate
- Cashewnuts – a handful – fry in a tbsp of ghee and set aside.
Put the coconut and the sugar together in a large heavy bottomed saucepan and heat, stirring constantly till the sugar melts and the “mudda” (lump) leaves the sides of the pan. Add the powdered cardamom and continue to mix. Add the milk and the cashewnuts. The lump will start getting thicker and begin to caramelise. Immediately switch off and drop onto a greased plate. In 3-4 minutes, as it cools, cut into pieces with a knife. When it cools completely, break up the pieces and store in a jar – i dare you to not eat at least 5 pieces during the process!
Diet?? When such goodies are available, who diets? Once I made a big ‘dabba’ of this barfi and your bro. Arvind finished it in one day! Perhaps he has forgotten with Shipra next to him!!!
Another variation is to add 2 Tbsp of roasted besan to the coconut mixture, while cooking. It gives a taste of khoa. Honest!