Bottle Gourd Pudding

Ritu served some chilled kheer after a lovely wholesome dinner.It tasted heavenly.I finished the entire bowl of it trying to figure out what kheer it was. After a round of guessing game, Ritu told it was Ghiye (Bottle Gourd) ka kheer. I could have never imagined it had she not spelled it out.

This Kheer is her mom's signature dessert recipe ! Can't imagine how our moms' cook so well.

Later I asked her to share this recipe for my 'guest recipe corner'. Frankly, I tricked her to prepare this lip smacking dessert again. And no prizes for guessing why :-)

Next time when you are preparing kheer, give this a try. You will absolutely fall in love with it.

Preparation Time - 1.5 hours

Serves - 4

Ingredients

Ghia - 1 medium size

Full Cream Milk at room temperature - 8 cups

Sugar - 1 cup

Cardamom - 3

Saffron - 1 pinch

For Garnishing

Chopped Almonds and Cashew Nuts - 1/3 cup

Whole Almonds - few

Rose Petals (optional)

Ghee for frying

Method of Preparation

1 Peel off the skin of the bottle gourd and grate it.
2 Heat ghee in heavy bottom pan, add grated Bottle gourd and fry on medium heat
till it is soft and turns slight brown in colour .
3 Take 8 cups of milk in a deep pan and allow it to boil on medium heat. Keep stirring intermittently.
4 Keep on stirring till the milk reduced to half of the original quantity.
5 Add the fried bottle gourd to this reduced milk.
6 Add sugar now and cook for another 5 minutes.
7 Turn off the heat and add cardamom powder and saffron.
8 Garnish with almonds, cardamom powder and rose petals.

Serving Tips

Serve chilled.

Other Names

Ghiya ka Kheer - Bottle Gourd Pudding,Ghia - Bottle Gourd/white gourd/calabash gourd/lauki/doodhi, Cardamom - Elaichi, Saffron - Keshar, Ghee - Clarified Butter

Sending this to Indian Khana - Festive Food