Kuswar Recipe Swap with Nelisha
Happy Holidays!! To get into the festive spirit, I collaborated with my friend and fellow Mangalorean, Nelisha Cutinha, to do a Kuswar recipe swap. Read what she wrote about Kuswar and her rice laddoo recipe below. Visit her lifestyle blog Being Nelisha and follow @Being.Nelisha for fun content about her life in Dubai!
Hungry for more Kuswar? Head to Nelisha’s blog to read my Kidyo/Kul Kuls (cookie) recipe!
Christmas is the one time of the year that I wish I could go back home to Mangalore. I have very fond memories of Christmas in Mangalore. I remember our whole family coming home to my place and making Kuswar. Kuswar is a traditional Mangalorean sweet made during Christmas time. The best part of making Kuswar is you will find all the ingredients readily available in your kitchen pantry.
Coming back to the present, I now live in Dubai and I wanted to recreate the same memories I had as a child for my children. I felt I needed to show my children (who have never lived in Mangalore) a part of our culture. That being said for the past three years, every Christmas I have been making Kuswar. The recipes for making Kuswar is quite simple but there is a lot of technique involved in the process.
Over the years I have perfected the recipe to my liking for Rice Laddoos. When I mention to my liking, my mom who is my biggest critic has not liked the way I make my rice laddoos. Every year she will ask me how I made them and every year I tell her how I did make them and she would say, “that's not how you make them’’ and the debate for making the perfect rice laddoo would go on for many days...(we are very dramatic and we take our recipes very seriously).
I met Shilpa through her sister Cheryl. Cheryl and I are married into the same family. I have never met these wonderful sisters in person, however, our endless conversations between the three of us have made me feel like I have known them forever. The one factor between us is our Mangalorean Culture and that's why I could not think of a better person to have a Christmas Collaboration with. We decided to each make a Kuswar. Shilpa made kidiyos (which in translation means worms or they are also called KulKuls) I decided to make the famously debatable Rice Laddoos. Traditionally the recipe calls for melting the jaggery and pounding the laddoo mix to eternity, however that’s not the case with my recipe. I am always finding ways to make recipes less complicated and much easier. So after a lot of experiments and trials and a million taste tests I have found the perfect recipe for my rice laddoos. They are soft, moist and they melt in your mouth. And if you are hungry and in need of a snack, just have one, they double up as an energy ball too...
The main ingredients are:
Red rice (or boiled rice)
Jaggery
Freshly grated coconut
Cardamom
Salt
The first step is to wash the rice and dry it. To dry the rice, take the wet rice and spread it over a large plate, and dry it. This might take a few hours depending on the weather conditions in your city. Make sure your rice is dried completely. Preferably do this the previous day to ensure your rice is dried completely.
Place a non-stick pan on medium-high heat and once the pan is warm add the dried rice to the pan. You need to roast the rice so you need to keep sautéing the rice. This process will take around 10- 15 mins. Please do not leave the rice unattended. You will hear a crackling sound and they will start to puff up.
Once this is done transfer to a dish so that the rice cools down.
Once the rice is cool transfer the rice to a mixer grinder along with the cardamom. After grinding the rice should resemble sand. (picture) do not over grind the rice. Transfer to a bowl and keep it aside.
Reserve around 2 tablespoons of rice powder separately in another bowl.
Transfer the jaggery, coconut, and pinch of salt to the mixer grinder.
You can grind the jaggery & coconut together to achieve a coarse consistency. You can grind this for about 3 – 4 seconds.
Mix the rice powder, the jaggery-coconut mixture, sesame seeds, and salt together. Mix everything well so that every ingredient is incorporated.
Take a portion of the mixture and press it in your palm to make a ball. The more you make the ball compact the better laddoo will form.
Roll the laddoo in the reserved rice powder.
Roll the laddoo in the reserved rice powder.
Store the Laddoos in an airtight container and refrigerate them.
Note: If you run out of Rice powder, you can roll the laddoos in rice flour.
Prep time: 30 mins
Total time: 30 mins
Servings: around 15 Laddoos
Ingredients:
250 gms of red rice (also known as boiled rice)
150 gms of jaggery
125 gms of freshly grated coconut
4 pods of cardamom (remove the husk and power the seeds)
Pinch of salt
Instructions:
The first step is to wash the rice and dry it. To dry the rice, take the wet rice and spread it over a large plate, and dry it. This might take a few hours depending on the weather conditions in your city. Make sure your rice is dried completely. Preferably do this the previous day to ensure your rice is dried completely.
Place a non-stick pan on medium-high heat and once the pan is warm add the dried rice to the pan. You need to roast the rice so you need to keep sautéing the rice. This process will take around 10- 15 mins. Please do not leave the rice unattended. You will hear a crackling sound and they will start to puff up. Once this is done transfer to a dish so that the rice cools down.
Once the rice is cool transfer the rice to a mixer grinder along with the cardamom. After grinding the rice should resemble sand. (picture) do not over grind the rice. transfer to a bowl and keep it aside.
Reserve around 2 tablespoons of rice powder separately in another bowl
Transfer the jaggery, coconut, and pinch of salt to the mixer grinder. You can grind the jaggery & coconut together to achieve a coarse consistency. You can grind this for about 3 – 4 seconds.
Mix the rice powder, the jaggery-coconut mixture, sesame seeds, and salt together. Mix everything well so that every ingredient is incorporated.
Take a portion of the mixture and press it in your palm to make a ball. The more you make the ball compact the better laddoo will form.
Roll the laddoo in the reserved rice powder.
Store the Laddoos in an airtight container and refrigerate them.
Note: If you run out of Rice powder, you can roll the laddoos in rice flour. In the pictures, I have doubled the quantities to make more laddoos.
