Mango-Saffron Kulfi for the Men in Blue

s I write this and get ready to publish, I cannot but help mentioning the victory of the Indian cricket team in the Cricket World Cup. Hip Hip Hooray! Three cheers for the Men in Blue. It feels great to be on top of the world and in such style. Go India! So this post is dedicated to the victory.
As the mercury climbs and the sun becomes more relentless, it is beginning to remind me of summers in India. The carefree school days, long summer holidays, visiting grandpa's place- I am sure each one of us must have some fond memories of summer like these. Summer also reminds us of our favorite food ice-cream :).The popular variation of which in India is called Kulfi. I have some fond memories of those summer evenings. I remember whenever we used to go out to eat chaat and panipuri (which was very often) we had to have kulfi otherwise the whole outing used to be incomplete. 

Kulfi is an Indian version of ice-cream... often flavored with cardamom, saffron and nuts and has a very unique flavor. It has similarities with ice-cream in terms of texture, taste and of course the fact that it is frozen milk! But unlike western ice creams, kulfi is not whipped, resulting in a solid, dense frozen dessert. Where I come from, it is often served with falooda noodles (kind of like vermicelli). During the summers in india, there is no dessert more popular than kulfi.

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Gulab Jamun

This sweet dish is another one of those from the Indian kitchen that needs no introduction so I will not write much about it. The soft sweet syrupy balls of goodness are every sweet lovers absolute favorite. These are in fact so popular that if you have ever been to an Indian restaurant even once in your life, chances are you have probably had Gulab Jamuns. In India they are sold by practically every place that carries anything sweet. Every high end or average restaurant, every odd sweet shop around the corner, every festival, every wedding dinner, if you stop by at a friend's place and they serve something sweet, more often than not, it will be these jamuns... you get the idea.
I will accept that they are a little tricky to make. The recipe is strictly to be adhered to and if you do, they come out great. It took me a couple of attempts to get it right but I am glad I tried. Here's my attempt to recreate these Jamuns from a recipe I really liked on Manjula's site.

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Kathal (Jackfruit) Biryani

If you have been following my posts recently you are probably familiar with my kathal (jack fruit) adventure. So as promised, here is my second dish in the kathal series.
This dish also was very timely as my brother was visiting for Raksha Bandhan and he is a die hard fan of chicken biryani. So I had to make that for him (will post the chicken biryani sometime soon). Being vegetarians, I couldn't leave us, specially dear hubby, biryani deprived... and I took it as a challenge to make something as good, if not better. Jack fruit biryani seemed the most logical choice. Followed my mom's recipe for chicken biryani just replacing the chicken with jack fruit and it turned out great. Both hubby and bro were happy and I got to use some of my huge pile of jackfruit, win win :).This recipe is simple and easy yet incredibly delicious.

Here's how I do it.

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Mango nut ice-cream

Making a good ice-cream is typically considered a very difficult task. I know because I have been there. I always thought good ice-cream can never be made at home or at least not without an ice-cream machine. But when I made Kulfi a few times, I figured why not try making ice-cream at home. I am glad I tried because I know this is a keeper recipe and will be a regular in our household. I had some mango puree left after making the mango lassi, also my brother and hubby are crazy for mango flavored anything, so I made mango ice-cream. I also added a few cashew nuts as we like the nutty taste in our ice-cream.This recipe is so easy that you will be amazed by the result, no churning, no ice-cream machine, no long list of ingredients. If that interests you read on :)

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