Traditional Kheer Recipe Is The Best Alternative To All Sweets

Many people prefer to cook sweet dishes at home on special occasions, rather than buying readymade sweets from shops. Kheer is a traditional Indian sweet that mothers prepare to celebrate the birthdays of their children in all families. It is also offered in several pujas to please the deities. Usually, kheer is prepared with milk, rice, sugar, and some Indian condiments. Now, different other ingredients are used for cooking different types of kheer, which are no less popular than the one made with rice.

Different ingredients that make difference to kheer recipe

Kheer Recipe

• Apple kheer is quite popular among children and it is a mouth-watering kheer preparation. Apples are sliced into small pieces and lightly fried in ghee before adding to the boiling milk. It is different from fruit custard, as cashew nuts, raisins, and pistachios are also added to enhance the flavour of this dessert.
• Vermicelli is termed as seviyan or semaiya in India. Hence Semai kheer is made by adding the long strands of fried vermicelli to the sweetened dense milk. It is then cooked over low flame for only a few minutes. Some people add saffron to bring a yellowish shade to this palatable dish.
• Tapioca is called sabudana in India. The tapioca grains are soaked in water and then directly added to the boiling milk. This sabudana kheer is very popular all over North and Western India, where people prefer to eat it while celebrating Navratri and other religious festivals.
• Rava kheer is another popular variety of this Indian dish that is more common in western coastal areas. Rava is the Indian term for semolina, which is lightly fried in ghee and poured to the boiling milk to which sugar is prior added. It becomes tastier with the addition of raisins, cherries, cashew nuts or roasted peanuts, and almonds. Some people also add khoya and jaggeries, to increase the thickness and sweetness of this kheer.
• South Indians use coconut milk instead of cow milk, to cook kheer that is called Payasam. They add jaggeries instead of sugar for sweetening this dish. Usually, rice or poha is added to make this kheer. Poha is the flattened rice that may be thick or thin according to the making procedure. All types of poha can be added to cook payasam, which is offered to God on special days.
• In some places of South India, yellow moong dal is used for making kheer or payasam. The moong lentils are added to the coconut milk, which is sweetened with jaggeries. It is a simple form of kheer recipe that can be afforded even by very poor people.

Kheer is known as firni in Kashmir, where rice powder is added to the dense boiling milk. The kheer recipe may change from place to place, but it still remains a delicious milk dessert in all forms.