My Food Story: A pudding made from garlic

My Food Story is a collection of stories and recipes that celebrate India’s traditional plant-based ingredients sourced from local biodiversity. You can see these recipes on our interactive dashboard (https://www.cseindia.org/page/myfoodstory).

Join us as we showcase the recipes shared with us by the participants of a recently concluded recipe contest. 

This is my mom’s traditional and authentic recipe for Lehsun Ki Kheer that she would make on special occasions like festivals, birthdays or just to celebrate moments as a family. This kheer (pudding) is unique as it is made from garlic (lehsun) which has a strong taste and smell and is usually used sparingly in savoury dishes. This is one recipe that my mom passed on to me when I learnt cooking from her.

Lehsun Ki Kheer

Ingredients

Garlic cloves (Lehsun Ki kaliyan): 12-15

Milk: 1/2 litre

Khoya (milk solids): 1/2 cup

Sugar: 1/2 cup

Vinegar: 2 cups

Green Cardamom powder: 1 tablespoon

Cinnamon powder: 1 tablespoon

Almonds: 1/2 cup finely chopped

Cashew nuts: 1/2 cup finely chopped

Ghee (Clarified butter): 2 tablespoons

Method

Peel garlic cloves (Lehsun ki kaliyan) and finely chop them. In a bowl, grate khoya and keep it aside. In a saucepan, add vinegar and little water and add finely chopped lehsun and bring to boil. After 2-3 boils, remove the vinegar from pan and rinse lehsun with water. We need to do this at least three times to remove the pungent smell of lehsun. Keep it aside.

Take another saucepan and 2 tablespoons of ghee and add finely chopped almonds, cashewnuts, walnuts and stir them for about 1-2 minutes and take them out on tissue paper. Now, in the same ghee stir fry lehsun for about 1-2 minutes and take it out on tissue paper.

Now, add milk in a saucepan and boil till it reduces to half. Then add khoya and mix it well. Add fried lehsun, almonds, cashewnuts and cook for about 4 minutes. Add green cardamom and cinnamon powder and sugar and mix properly. Bring to a boil and turn off the flame. Serve Lehsun ki kheer hot and it tastes yummy.                                                                                         

Meenakshi Kapur is a New Delhi-based homemaker