Theratti Paal (Milk Sweet) - தெரட்டி பால் Do it Yourself

Theratti paal, is very popular as a Deepavali milk sweet and is usually made on a large open vessel (Kadai style) where large quantities of milk are slowly stirred and condensed while simultenously adding sugar and ghee (clarified butter) to make a very small volume of this delicacy!

The recipe shown in this videoblog is a quick cheat way that my pittsburg Manni (SIL) taught me some 15 years ago. If I remember right, the original recipe she refined was from Mallika Badrinath who in my opinion should be given an honorary doctorate or Chef title by graduate students trying to satisfy the longing of their taste buds.

Very simple:

- get sweetened condensed milk (Nestle preferred over local brand names) one 14 oz can

- put in large glass bowl (get pyrex or corning lead free microwaveable glass). Do not do this in plastic. Have seen reports of high fat containing substances microwaved in plastic containers forming carcinogenic dioxins.

- soak some saffron in little water

- add 15-20 drops of lemon juice into condensed milk, stir thoroughly and microwave for 5 minutes under constant supervision. If the whole thing overflows, stir and put back in microwave

- then add 3-4 spoons of Ghee, add saffron, a few sprinkles of powdered cardamom for flavoring, stir vigorously , put back in microwave for 2-3 minutes and make sure you don't burn it.

Hope you enjoy making this sweet.

ps. The microwave time will be ~6-7 minutes total if you use only one can. For two cans it might be 11-12 minutes total.

pps. you have to try this a few times to figure out the final total time for a given microwave power and volume of condensed milk. The condensed milk is $2.19 a can. So you can do a few tries with single cans before graduating to volume production!

Just found that they spell it "thirattu paal" (we call it theratti paal!! go figure..)
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South Indian Crispies - aka Javarisi VadAm

If you have guests for dinner and you are still cooking, one thing you can do is to get some papads, or Javarisi vadam's (made from Sago or Sabudhana), pop them in the microwave and give them as an appetizer of sorts.

This is a videoblog of how to make Javarisi VadAm from scratch.

Ingredients (or proportions)

For 1 1/2 cup Sago, 7 cups water, 2 medium size Indian (or Thai) short Chili's, 1 spoon salt, 1/4 spoon of Asafoedita (aka Hing), one small lemon

Also required : Saran wrap or plastic sheets, some oil to smear on the sheet if you are not using Saran wrap.

You can have fun giving the kids squirrel/Crow watching duty while the Vadam's dry in the sun.

Hope you enjoy making and eating Vadams!

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Understanding the Besan Sugar Ghee Ternary Phase Diagram -aka Mysore Pak

Any South Indian Materials Engineer worth his salt (or sugar) will know that Mysore Pak is derived by going through many a tie line on the Besan-Sugar-Ghee ternary phase diagram, with many solid phases, liquid phases in equilibrium, non-equilibrium, etc. etc..

But you eventually get to that sweet spot after an hour or so of stirring the mix in various proportions!

For those who are not materials engineers, it might be a daunting task to get to this sweet over that one hour period.

To specially help those, the two videos below show you how to make the south Indian delicacy.

Take heart. If I can do this you can.

Couple of Notes:

1. Make sure you put some Ghee on the pan where you pour the mix finally. (My camcorder did not record that part)

2. If you are not used to touching hot objects, do not touch the pan or tong and try to lick off hot mysore pak. You will get burnt.

3. Indian stores sell pre made Ghee. Expensive, but can save you time.

Hope you have fun making and eating Mysore Pak.

Do post your experience, notes, suggestions in the comments.

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Mysore Pak - Do it Yourself Videoblog

From 9:45 to 10:54PM tonight, the Mysore Pak was made..and video'ed.

The footage is long and initial editing makes the video a good 17 odd minutes.

Have applied for a special Youtube account, but don't know if they will give me one.. you see they want to give it only if you intend to make money out of videos!

Will break it into two videos and post it tomorrow.

Whole house smells Mysore Pak and it does taste divine.

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