Sunday, January 21, 2018

Nolen Gur Shooters -- for Ma Saraswati


So all this shooter-wooter was initiated by a single text. A text from a friend's little sister living in London.

Last month she sent me a message "BMdi, do you have a Nolen Gur er souffle recipe?"

Until that very moment I had no idea of any existence of "Nolen Gur er Souffle". A souffle as I know it is this --"A soufflé is a baked egg-based dish which originated in early eighteenth century France. It is made with egg yolks and beaten egg whites combined with various other ingredients and served as a savory main dish or sweetened as a dessert."

So would a Nolen Gur er souffle be an egg based dessert sweetened by Nolen gur or would it be a faux eggless version? I didn't know!

"How do they make it I asked?".
This particular young lady had earlier shared her secret malai kabab recipe with me and they were the very best, and so I hoped she would know this one too. (Will post that kabab recipe sometime).

"I don't know. Balaram Maullick has it," she replied back.

Since that day, I kept on thinking of Nolen gur er souffle. After a bit of research and since I wasn't sure if I should or should not add eggs, I finally decided on a mousse kind of recipe. After all a mousse -- a mousse is a soft prepared food that incorporates air bubbles to give it a light and airy texture-- is a close cousin of a souffle. The bonus point was mousse can get its foaminess from whipping cream and not always eggs. Perfect!

Now since I am a very lazy-bone, I found the simplest of all mousse recipes that needs only two ingredients. And then decided to jazz it up and serve them as shooters.

Now, Nolen gur or Khejur Gur is a very precious commodity for me. I don't get good ones here. My Ma buys them in winter and then saves some for me. She usually tries to send it through anyone who is flying to USA from DumDum Airport. Actually she did that more frequently earlier until folks stopped telling her that they are flying to USA. "Nope,  I am not flying to US. Jhumritalaiya has a new airport called JFK."

I use my limited stash very very judiciously. Birthday paayesh and such only gets to see my Khejur Gur. So I wasn't just going to make Nolen Gur shooters for my own pleasure. Nope. So I waited and waited for the right moment... and here its.

These Nolen Gur Shooters are Ma Saraswati's proshad tomorrow. I bet she will be very happy.






Nolen Gur Shooters

What you Need

Heavy Whipping Cream -- 2 Cups or 1 pint

Nolen gur/Khejur Gur/Date Palm Jaggery -- Break the solid disc of Khejur Gur and roughly measure about 1.5 Cups. If you want more sweet then 2 Cups.

Maraschino Cherries -- for decorating

How I did It

Melt the Nolen Gur

In a small saucepan, warm 3/4th Cup of Whole Milk( if you have more of the heavy cream you can use that instead of milk too). Bring the milk to a simmer and thens witch off the gas.

Add the Khejur Gur/Nolen Gur/Jaggery to the warm milk and stir it around until it melts. The jaggery will melt and mix in the milk. We will add this melted jaggery to the whipped cream to make our mousse.
Note: Keep aside a little of this melted jaggery for decoration purpose.

Beat the Whipping Cream

Whip the whipping cream till you get stiff peaks. Now there are several ways you can do this. I would say to use a hand blender or a KitchenAid. You can use your hands and whisk it but that will need time and muscles.

In the bowl of the KitchenAid pour out the whipping cream. Use the whisk attachment.

Start at a medium speed and then go up to high. After 6-7 minutes you will see soft peaks forming in the whipping cream. After about 8 minutes or so you will see firmer peaks.
Check this site for more details on how to make whipped cream

Once the cream is airy and has firm peaks, add the melted nolen gur solution . Fold it in with a rubber spatula.
Note: you can keep aside a little of the whipped cream for piping decoration

For presentation

In small glass bowls or shooter glasses, do this

pour 1 tsp of the melted jaggery/nolen gur (you can skip this if you don't like it very sweet)
Spoon in the whipped cream
Top with a cherry
Drizzle a tsp of melted jaggery
You can decorate with some whipped cream if you have saved some.

Serve Chilled



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3 comments:

  1. Hi, Really great effort. Everyone must read this article. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Too good bong mom

    Kind regards,
    Ash

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey Sandeepa, This is a unique and great recipe will surely gonna try this at my home

    ReplyDelete

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