Almond Pistachio Fudge. Another Gluten Free Dessert, Plus a Giveaway

   One of my favorite Indian desserts is sweet milk fudge. There are a few ways of making this treat, most of which involve cooking either milk or milk powder up close and personal for quite a while. Bring a stool and some Crocs if you're planning this. The other involves the use of chenna cheese, not always an easily found commodity here in Sonoma. I prefer to make my own. The process is pretty easy and the addition of sweetener turns it into chenna cheese. However when the fudge jones hits, there's not always time or patience available to bother with making chenna cheese. Which is where I found myself the other day with friends (one of whom is gluten free) coming over for a movie night, not a whole lot of time and definitely no chenna cheese on hand. This is where internet rumor comes in.

   You know those stories always circulating out there.  Stuff that sends one scurrying to Snopes.com to check them out. Well there's been one around for a while now that Barfi, the delicious  Indian dessert can be made easily and quickly in a microwave, and  without any chenna cheese. I'd been reading versions of this technique for a while now and had been waiting for the opportunity to try it. According to internet lore, barfi could be whipped up in a microwave in about 20 minutes or less simply using ricotta cheese as a sub for chenna.  It sounded impossible but I was intrigued, plus I had everything necessary for the recipe right in my pantry. It can't get easier than that.

  Of course I backed myself up with all the ingredients to make ice cream just in case the rumors of perfect  instant barfi were about as real as the End of the Mayan Calendar. The rumors I'm happy to report, turned out to be correct. Barfi can be made fast and easily.

Almond Pistachio Barfi

Here's What You Need:

1 can of sweetened condensed milk
1 16 oz container of ricotta
1/2 tsp of rose water
1/4 tsp of ground cardamom
2 Tbs finely chopped pistachios
2 Tbs finely chopped almonds

Here's What To Do:

Mix the ricotta and condensed milk together well.

Pour the mixture into a microwave safe bowl.
Cook the mixture in the microwave uncovered for 5 minutes.

 While it's cooking, chop the pistachios and almonds and set them aside.

When the 5 minutes have passed,  take the ricotta and condensed milk out and mix it up well.

Pop it back in the microwave for 3 minutes uncovered.
Whip it up again.
Pop it back in for another 2 minutes covered.
Whip it some more.

It will start to darken and thicken as you whip it.
Put it back in for another 2 minutes partially covering the bowl.
Whip it up again.
Micowave it for another 6 minutes.
Take it out of the microwave every 3 minutes, give at a good stirring then pop it back in again.
When it's finished, give it another good stirring, and add in the 1/4 tsp of ground cardamom and 1/2 tsp of rose water. Mix them in well.
Pour the mixture into a lightly buttered square pan.
Press it down well and flatten it.
Sprinkle the top with the ground pistachios and almonds.

Press them in well.
Cover the pan and either chill it in the fridge for a hour to set, or set it out on a counter for a few hours.
When you are ready to serve cut it into squares.

Serve it with a nice cup of chai.

   So how does the barfi made in a microwave stack up next to conventionally made barfi? Besides being fast, and easy? It tasted just as good and was a perfect dessert to whip up  in a hurry. As long as you can get your pie-hooks on some ricotta and sweetened condensed milk, you're golden. I'm definitely going to be doing this again, with experimenting with different flavors and nuts.

   Now I have to add here that we had another feature after the film and before the dessert. Our friend Chip brought over a selection of artisanal liquors.

I'm totally ignorant about these things, but Chip comes from the hill country, aka The Holler and knows about such stuff. He had a Birthday/New Years Eve party a few weeks ago.

This is when he acquired the hooch.  The  Hooker's House Corn Liquor in the jar also known as White Lightening is from a small local company called  Prohibition Spirits  and was a gift from us. He wanted to share this  bounty with his friends, so he brought it all over to our house. Shots were poured, and people sampled. I was an observer.

   Chip said he would demonstrate the purity of the Corn Liquor. The next thing I knew he was pouring it into the jar lid and and setting it on fire on my dining room table.

Voila!

I felt as though I had stepped into a scene from Lawless.



It seems the old saying is true. You can take the boy out of The Holler but you can't take The Holler out of the boy.
  
   Finally, if you want a chance to win a Masala Dabba (spice box) from GitaDiniUSA

The spice box they sent me is very cool and I think anyone who enjoys cooking would love it.

Just follow me on Twitter @kathygori  and them @GitaDiniUSA and leave a comment letting me know. I'll be drawing a winner on Jan 31st.  Coming up next, a quick soup and treats for Superbowl Sunday and Oscar crowds.

Got Garbanzos? Try This Easy Gluten-Free Dessert.

    I spend my weekdays writing for a living. On those weekdays I usually am cooking our main meal of the day which is a mid-day lunch. This does not usually contain dessert other than fruit or a biscuit, or fruit and a biscuit. But on the weekends, I put on my go-to-hell pants and experiment with dessert. As far as I'm concerned weekends are for dessert. Weekends are also for biking and hiking and walking and all the other things that help work off the dessert, leading to fewer feelings of guilt and remorse when the week resumes and I have to put my real pants on. The best of all worlds is of course relatively guilt-free desserts. Treats that rather than being fried, are baked. Treats that rather than having a cup of ghee, might have one or two tablespoons, but just enough to give that delightful shiver of sin while eating them so that one does not have to start Monday off asking, "Does this make my ass look big?"
   Another big dessert factor usually revolves around what's in the house and how can I take advantage of it? This is a dessert that more than meets that requirement. No special ingredients, no tricky techniques. Odds are that nearly everyone reading this has these ingredients or most of them at home right now. It's called Glazed Garbanzo-Milk Barfi. 
   For those that don't know, Barfi is a sort of Indian-style milk fudge. This recipe came to me via Paula Wolfert giving me a whole pile of her Indian cookbooks. I have been plowing through these books, some of them quite old. This however is from a fairly recent book (about 20 years old)  Laxmi's Vegetarian Kitchen by Laxmi Hiremath. It's a great book full of accessible and very tasty vegetarian dishes. I highly recommend it. Anyway, back to the fudge (barfi). 

Chickpea Fudge

Here's what to do:
 Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Rinse and drain one can of garbanzo beans or 1 cup of cooked garbanzo beans.
Grind them to a paste in a food processor.
Add in 2/3 cup of powdered sugar

Mix it together well. 
Add in:
1/2 cup dry powdered milk

1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
2 Tbs. of chopped raw cashews

3 Tbs of melted unsalted butter
1/4 cup of milk

 Mix it together well.
 Pour everything into a lightly greased 8x8 square baking pan.
Note: I do not own one of these as I found out last night when I was making this. I thought I did. I could have sworn I had one, but no. I did not.
Pop the pan in the middle of the oven and bake for about 35 minutes. When the top is light golden pull it out. Let it cool. Then refrigerate it for 2 hours or so. Cut it into two inch squares and enjoy.

   This is great with a nice spicy cup of chai. It's light, lightly buttery and a nice gluten-free, high protein, delicious dessert or tea-time treat. Store it in the fridge if there's any left. It will keep for about 4 days. Sure it will.
  Meanwhile I have made several versions of firni, phirni. My friend Sanjeeta of Tasty Bites turned me on to another variation. There's a whole world of firni out there as I am discovering as I seek out my own private firni delight. I have some ideas and am doing my due diligence (eating my mistakes) and hope to have perfection soon.
 Coming up next, a return to the world of vegetables, after all the weekend's over.