Mango phirni
Mango phirni - a summertime fruity twist to the classic Indian dessert rice phirni (creamy Indian rice pudding).
Servings: 4
Equipment
- Blender
- Thick-bottomed pan
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp Brown rice
- 1 liter Milk (full cream)
- 2 Ripe mangoes (or as much as would give 1.5 cups of puree)
- 1 tbsp Cream
- 3 tbsp Sugar (adjust to the taste of mangoes)
- 1 tbsp Raisins
- 1 tbsp Almonds (toasted and slivered)
For the layering (optional):
- 6 Digestive biscuits
Instructions
Grind the rice
- Wash rice in several changes of water till the water runs clear. Soak the rice in two cups of water for 4 hours.
- Drain the rice, and grind it coarsely in a grinder.
Make mango puree
- Peel the mangoes and carve out the mango flesh, transfer to a blender. Sprinkle some sugar if the mangoes are not sweet enough. Discard the mango seed.
- Pulse for a few seconds to make thick mango puree.
Cook the phirni and 'mangofy' it
- In a thick-bottomed pan, heat a liter of milk till it boils. Set the heat to low and add ground rice to it.
- Tip: To prevent ground rice from clumping, mix some hot milk into the ground rice and make a smooth thin paste of it, breaking lumps if any. Then add the rice paste to the simmering milk.
- Cook while stirring the milk at regular intervals till the rice is done and the milk has thickened.
- Be watchful about two things while the milk and rice simmer together: don't let the rice stick to the bottom of the pan or form clumps.
- After about 30 minutes of slow cooking and regular stirring, the milk will begin to bubble thickly. That's the time to stir in sugar, raisins and slivered almonds.
- Cook for another couple of minutes (by this time the milk will be bubbling and splattering), and remove from heat.
- Stir in a cup of mango puree and cream into the phirni.
- Note: be careful about the quantity of sugar you add to the phirni while it cooks. The mango puree that gets added at the end contributes to its sweetness too.
Layer and Serve
- Place 6 digestive biscuits in the grinder. Grind. [This will also help clean up the mango puree in the grinder :-)]
- For each serving take a small glass. Add a layer of mango phirni at the base of the glass. Spoon a thin layer of powdered biscuits over the phirni. Top with another layer of phirni.
- Decorate the surface with mango puree. Cover the glasses and refrigerate mango phirni for at least 3 hours before serving.
- Serve mango phirni chilled.
Notes
Let the phirni cool to almost room temperature, before assembling it for individual servings.