If you fancy yourself as a good blend of modern
sense and customary tradition, upcoming Diwali is the time and opportunity to experiment
and demonstrate to neighbours and friends smart new ways of doing old things.
Regular sweets such as barfis, gulab-jamoons and
multi-coloured khoya sweets are so predictable, calorie-dense and heavy, that
most guests either shun them or reluctantly pick up the smallest piece on the
plate when compelled. With diabetes, obesity and heart problems being as common
as they are, most of these traditional delicacies do not go down well with those
for whom they were intended, but find their way to homes of servants, drivers
and junior office staff.
Should you want your guests to eat, enjoy, take
an extra-helping and remember what they had at your house, you need to make
them appealing, healthy and different.
Manju never failed to surprise me over the years
with her innovative preparations: mouth-watering and memorable, with that right
mix of being delightful to the eyes and tongue, healthy and quite out of the
ordinary. Here are some of the unique yet simple recipes she has shared.
Fruit “Cream”. Soak dried figs and dates in water
for a while and puree them. Cut fruits of your choice and mix with the fig date
puree to make a healthy sugar-free fruit cream.
Banana Shrikhand. Strain the water out of yogurt
by putting it in a sieve for about an hour. Mix ground sugar and ground cardamom to the thick yogurt. Add
banana slices. Serve chilled.
Dry Healthy Mix. Cut slices of coconut, dates,
figs and almonds. Mix them and serve as dessert.
Apple Sandesh. Mash paneer well.. add sugar,
powdered cardamom and saffron, and mix well. Cut apple in small thin slices and
stew with little sugar. In small bowls, put a thin layer of paneer, then of
apple stew, then again paneer….Sprinkle sliced pistachios on top or decorate
with dots of saffron paste.
Fig Yogurt.
Set yogurt in tiny glasses, but fill only half the glass. Soak figs and
puree three-fourth. Cut the other one-fourth into tiny pieces. Mix the paste
and pieces. Slowly cover the yogurt in glasses with the fig mix. Serve cold. As
an alternative to figs, you can use any sweet fruit, like deseeded custard
apple.
Apple Kheer. Grate apple and stew with sugar or
sweetener. Thicken milk a little by boiling; add sugar, ground cardamom and
saffron. Chill the milk and stewed and
stewed apple…mix and serve.
Adding and garnishing your preparation with
natural sweeteners such as honey, dates, figs and raisins could add originality
and make them stand out, apart from making them healthy.
Further, Manju’s recipes contain less than half
the calories that regular sweets contain, do not pose the dilemma “to take or
not to take”, and do not cause the weight surge we go through at this time of
the year. Make this Deepawali different.
As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times) dated 27 October, 2013.
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