Upgrade: Pineapple Rava Kesari

Although I've loved Indian food most of my life, I have taken only tentative steps into making it at home. All the different spices and combinations thereof are quite intimidating for an American home cook, even one with a lot of experience with other Asian cuisines. A lot of the Chinese dishes I've shown on this blog use prepared products like fermented bean pastes or dried mushrooms, which are quite complex all on their own. Building a dish from these things is a relatively simple process. Indian dishes, on the other hand, are often built from the ground up using spices. From what I've read on the topic, spices should be as fresh as possible, which means buying whole spices (rather than ground) and buying frequently in smaller quantities. This poses some problems of practicality for me. Luckily, I've had pretty good access to Indian restaurants in places I've lived, including the phenomenal Sharma's Kitchen in West Lafayette and Passage to India in Fargo. It is the latter that inspired my efforts to make rava kesari back in 2012. With the nearest Indian restaurant nearly an hour away from Vermillion, I find myself tinkering at home again.

My original post on rava kesari was groundbreaking in many ways. I rarely make desserts at all, let alone Indian ones. While it was a success, I missed the mark in a few ways, which left room for an upgrade. The main shortcoming of the original recipe was a failure to get the signature deep yellow color. It ended up a somewhat unappetizing yellowish brown instead. I reacted by throwing in some turmeric, which I'm not sure helped much. What I've done this time is make sure to pulverize the saffron and bloom it with a little water. 8 years of cooking experience definitely makes a difference in realizing these kinds of things. As such, the turmeric is gone. The other big change is the incorporation of pineapple. While the dish is perfectly good without it, pineapple is a popular and tasty variant. I referenced a post on Veg Recipes of India for how to incorporate the pineapple, while keeping the structure of the dish consistent with my original post. Combining the sugar into a syrup with the pineapple also speeds up the process, since the sugar will already be dissolved by the time it goes into the semolina mixture. Since the pineapple and pineapple juice are somewhat sweet on their own, I've cut down the amount of sugar a bit. Overall, rava kesari is a really nice treat and quite simple to put together. I highly recommend giving it a try!

Ingredients

• 1/4 lb. pineapple chunks
• 1/2 cup pineapple juice (reserve from can)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup raw cashew pieces
• 6 Tbs. ghee (divide in half)
• 1/2 cup semolina
• 3/4 cup boiling water
• Pinch of saffron threads
• 1/4 tsp. cardamom powder

Instructions

Use a mortar and pestle to pound the saffron into a powder. Add a little water and let sit until needed. In a saucepan, combine pineapple chunks, juice, and sugar. Cook over low heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Leave on the heat until needed.

In a nonstick skillet, melt 3 Tbs. ghee. Add cashews and toast a few minutes on medium-low heat. Remove the cashews and set aside, but leave the ghee in the pan. 

Add semolina. Toast, stirring constantly, for a few minutes. 

Slowly pour the boiling water into the pan while stirring. Continue stirring a few more minutes.

Add the pineapple-sugar mixture to the pan and stir together. Stir in the cardamom and saffron (with water). Add the cashews and remaining 3 Tbs. ghee. 

Fold the mixture until the ghee is fully integrated. Serve hot.