Rava Kesari | Sooji Kesari | Simple & Easy Indian Sweet Recipe

I don’t even know making a kesari is so simple than any other sweet. Since it’s a Friday and I wanted to make some sweet for poojai, I made it in just 15 minutes . I had some left sooji in my rack and am bored of doing the same upma and kichadi with that. Undoubtedly I took and made a kesari, but without food color. I felt it is not so important for a kesari to be in bright orange color. Why can’t we make a plain white colored kesari. Does it make any change in flavor or the taste?  No. then why we add it!!! And it is not good for health too…  I can give u many reasons for not using a color, but the major reason is I don’t have any colors at home  … I prefer not to use any food colors in my recipes.

Coming to the recipe… I used four cups of water for one cup of sooji. It depends basically on the brand and variety of sooji ur using. Generally 3-4 cups is more than enough to cook the sooji. The big trouble for most of us is rava forming lumps while adding to the water . The trick  to get rid of it is, add the roasted rava slowly to the heavily boiling water and constant stirring with the other hand. You need to be ambidextrous at sometimes, you see… 

 I learned another trick from my maid to get rid of this lumps while cooking rava. Heat water in a separate pan and roast the rava in another one. Once the water starts boiling, add the water to the roasted rava in the pan. This reduces the amount of lumps u get while cooking and this doesn’t need constant and quick stirring. Ok! Let’s move on to the recipe for kesari. 

Preparation and Cooking time: 15-20 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup rava/sooji

1 ¾ cup sugar

4 cups water

1-2 cardamom (optional)

Pinch of kesari color/orange or yellow food color

Few cashew nuts

Raisins

1 tbsp ghee

How to make it

• In a pan heat little of ghee and roast the rava till light brown or till the aroma wafts. Keep aside.

• Boil water in a pan till it bubbles up and add the roasted rava slowly with stirring. Else it forms lumps and spoil the recipe.

• Keep stirring the content in medium flame. Cover with the lid till the rava cooks soft.

• Reduce the flame to low and add the sugar. Keep stirring till the sugar melts down. It creates a greasy texture to the rava. Add cardamom at this stage.

• At this time top the rava with one more 1tsp of ghee.  

• Simultaneously roast the raisins and cashews in little of ghee.

• Stir occasionally and cook in medium flame for 4-5 minutes.

• Once the rava-sugar mixture forms a whole mass, add the roasted cashews and raisins on top. Mix well.

• The easy and simple Indian sweet is ready to serve.

Notes

1. Adding milk while cooking the rava gives different taste.
2. I dint use any of the food color. Using it is basically an optional.
3. If u doesn’t like the flavor of cardamom, skip it. There is nothing wrong in that. Still u can get the excotic flavor.