Kesar Pedha/Peda

My last post was about "Mava/Khoya". So, it was natural to follow it up with the easiest and one of the most traditional Indian sweets - "Pedha".  Pedha is possibly the easiest Indian sweet that you can make if you have mava at home (whether home made or store bought). It is a great mithai to make for potlucks too, being very easy to scale up. Cooking time is around ten minutes or so and you can serve them as soon as the rolled out pedha cools down to room temperature.

There are many kinds of pedhas and the easiest one is kesar pedha or pedha with saffron. Of course, there are also the more complicated ones that take a lot of cooking time and are more effort intensive like the kandi pedha(Dharwadi pedha). Pedhas are a staple at any traditional Indian function.

Ingredients
2 cups mava
3/4 - 1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp cardamom/elaichi powder
10-15 flakes of saffron
1 tsp milk
1 tsp ghee

Method
Grate or cruble the mava into small pieces and measure 2 cups.  Warm the milk a little and add the saffron strands to it, mix and keep aside. In a pan, add some ghee and the mava and cook on low heat. Stir so that it doesnt stick to the bottom of the pan. You will need to cook for about 7-10 minutes and you will start getting the aroma of mava being roasted. At this stage the color of the mava will start to turn a very light brown (almost beige). Then add the cardamom powder and the saffron milk and mix well. Let it all cook together, till the milk evaporates and then take it off the heat. When the mixture cools down where it is warm to touch, add the powdered sugar and mix thoroughly.

Then, apply a little ghee to your hands and take small amount of this mixture and roll it into a ball and flatten it to form a disc. The disc should be around an inch in diameter. Your pedha is ready. Let the warm pedhas cool down and serve at room temperature.

 These will last without refrigeration for a couple of days. For longer term storage, store in the fridge. You can store it in the fridge for two-three weeks.

Tips
I added on 3/4 cup of sugar when I made pedhas, but if you want it to be sweeter, add more to taste.
An extremely easy method to make pedhas is to reduce condensed milk and roll pedhas from it when the mixture solidifies. However, the major drawback of this method is that you are not at liberty to choose the amount of sugar that gets added to the pedha. Condensed milk tends to be very sweet and hence your pedhas will also turn out very sweet.
Upon creating the flattened pedha disc, you can add a slice of almond or pistachio on top of the pedha to decorate it.

Dharwadi Pedha

This is possibly my most favorite pedha. I have eaten it very few times while growing up. It was mainly offered in weddings as a sweet. I rarely ever found it in a shop and when I did, it wasn't necessarily chosen by the others. I guess the rarity made it even more irresistable. I have heard that this is a speciality of the Dharwad region which is at the border of Maharashtra and Karnataka. It is also famous by the name "Kandi Pedha".

I was thinking about this sweet quite frequently for the last few weeks and lamenting on the fact that it is so rare to find it in shops in India, that it would be impossible to find it here. Then I thought, why not make it? I searched the internet and while I found references to this delicacy, I couldn't find a recipe. So, of course I called up my Mom and as usual she knew the recipe and gave me guidelines and offered a warning that this would take a long long time to make. So for those of you about to embark on the path to this recipe, I am duty bound to pass on this warning. This recipe can take a couple of hours to about 3 hours to make and you must pay close attention while its cooking. You don't want it to get spoilt at the end of 3 hours! If you make it, I am sure you will agree with me that it was well worth the effort.

Ingredients
1/2 cup clarified butter/ ghee
2 cups ricotta cheese (use the one with the maximum amount of fat content that you can find)
3/4 cup sugar
4 tbsp sugar (for garnish)
5 green cardamom pods, ground into a powder
couple of teaspoons of milk

Method
Process the ricotta cheese  in a food processor or blender, till it has a paste like consistency. Ricotta cheese is granular and we want it to be fine before heating it. In a pan, add the ghee and the processed ricotta cheese and heat it. Cook this for the next hour or more till the ricotta cheese slowly loses the watery consistency and takes on the mawa consistency. It is very important to keep a close eye on the cheese to make sure that it does not get stuck at the bottom of the pan or burn. Keep stirring it frequently. Once it is close to mawa consistency, you will also notice that the smell and the taste of the cheese changes significantly. At this point, you are half way through the cooking process.

Continue to reduce this mawa till it takes on a pink color and then keep roasting it till it turns light brown. Be very careful at this point and do not let it burn. You will notice that the mawa will become very granular and start separating out. Once you have a nice brown color, turn off the heat and let it cool for a few minutes. The color and consistency should be similar to the picture above.

Then add the cardamom powder and 3/4 cup sugar to this. Process it in a food processor, till the sugar mixes well into the roasted mawa. If you have browned your mawa really well, the sugar will not blend into the mawa completely. At this stage, sprinkle a few drops of milk. It is important that you do not pour too much milk into the mawa-sugar mixture. Process this again. Keep adding the milk as required till it all comes together in a dough form.

Then move it back to the pan and heat it again for a few minutes. The mixture will come together in a ball. It will be the right consistency to roll into pedhas at this stage. Turn off the heat and then knead the mixture really well. Then roll out small balls, about 3/4th inch in diameter. The mixture should still be a little warm at this stage. In another plate spread out a layer of sugar kept aside for garnish. Flatten the ball onto this sugar and make sure both the sides are coated with sugar. Keep aside. Use the entire mixture till all the pedhas are ready.

Enjoy your hardwork!!!

Tips
For the pedha to taste like kandi pedha, the mawa must be well browned. It is a key requirement. Cook this throughout on a low heat, else there are chances of burning. If you burn the mixture, you will need to start from the beginning. Do not use powdered sugar. You can feel the sugar texture in kandi pedha, so you must use granulated sugar.