Indians are known to be fans of milk-based desserts. Innumerable mithai shops boast of their burfis, kalakands and malai pedas, to name a few. Milk is considered auspicious and thus used in liberally in our daily lives.
Milk anyway is one of the best sources of protein, calcium etc. Being Punjabi, I love all milk products from almond and cardamom flavoured chilled milk which my grandmother would make for us during winters and forced us to have during exams to keep us agile and attentive to sweet, fragrant and freshly made lassi to mouth watering kheer, to milk and badam halwa. They are all in the forefront of my never ending milk-based desserts.
Lately Gujarat has been the flavour of India for obvious reasons. And Big B too has been promoting Gujarat so beautifully. This has prompted me to write about Gujarat’s favourite milk-based creamy dessert called Basundi, the mere thought of which makes me salivate.
Basundi is also popular in Bihar, Maharashtra and Karnataka. It is a sweetened dense milk made by boiling milk on low heat until it is reduced by half.
Double fresh cream may be added during the boiling process to hasten the thickening. Once reduced, a little sugar, cardamom, Charoli and/or saffron are added. Basundi is served chilled, often garnished with slices of dry fruits like almond and pistachios , although I personally liberally put raisins.
Thanks to innovative chefs , basundi has evolved and many variations have emerged .Today we have custard apple basundi, date basundi, chocolate flavoured basundi, angoori basundi (infused with small rasgullas), jaggery basundi and rose basundi to name a few .
As most of milky desserts such as kheer, burfi etc are used in and auspicious ceremonies, basundi too is often made during festivals such as Kali Chaudas and Bhaubeej.
When I visited Gujarat, a friend’s mother invited me over for dinner. On my request, she made basundi for dessert as her recipe is the talk of town. She made it with condensed milk. The first mouthful made me want more as I had never eaten something like it before. She told me that this could also be eaten with puri and chhole. After much coaxing, I was able to get the recipe and here it is for all of you.