Kesari Bath / Saffron Flavoured Rice Pudding / Kesari Baat

Happy Deepavali to all Aps Kitchen Reasders.
Deepavali/Diwali is a festival of lights, it’s a festival where we rejoice with family and friends, light Deepa/diya’s and celebrate light over darkness and good over evil.
Apart from this we enjoy all goodies made at home and from neighbors home too ;). We here actually don’t stock things during Diwali, as I really don’t wait for any occasion to try out any dish, but make sure I prepare some sweet during festivals.
So here is Kesari bath/ Saffron flavored rice pudding/ Kesari baat
This is served during marriages or functions in mangalore but I personally am not fond of this neither is my husband but I thought this needs to be here in my blog to showcase variety of sweet dishes even though they aren’t my favorite.
I followed Kudpi maam’s recipe from KudpiRaj Garam Tawa, there he has added pineapple but I haven’t done that here rest the recipe remains same.
Basmati Rice / Jeera rice -1 cup
Water -2.5 cups
Sugar – ¾ th cup (add according to your sweet tolerance)
Ghee – 4 tbsp
Cloves – 4-5
Few dry fruits and nuts( I used cashew and raisins)
Saffrom strands a pinch or 2
Cardamom powder – ¼ th tsp


Method:
Wash rice and soak it for about 10-15 minutes and drain.
Soak saffron strands in hot water.
Heat the water (it must come to a rolling boil).
In a pan heat 2 tbsp ghee and roast the nuts and raisins and keep aside.
In same ghee add cloves and roast for a few seconds.
Add drained rice and boiling water and mix well.
After a few minutes add in the saffron and mix well.
Cover and cook the rice until its ¾ th done.
Add remaining ghee, sugar and cardamom powder.
Mix gently.
While ghee leaved the pan/kadai switch off the flame and garnish with roasted nuts and raisins.
Cover it and keep aside for 10 minutes.
Tastes good when served Hot.




Notes:
You need to choose a fragrant rice.
Cooking rice in medium heat is very important
A few people add yellow food colour drops for bright yellow colour but I avoid colour in my food.
Do not add sugar while rice is cooking as rice may be underdone. I had tried it once and was left with grains ;)
Once again wishing all a Happy Diwali. Do good be good.
Happy Cooking,

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