Star chefs Gaggan Anand and Zorawar Kalra share delicious mithai recipes with a western twist

Gaggan Anand’s Poor Man’s Porridge
This dessert is made up of three components — rich ice cream, pistachio gel and almond glass.

Rich Ice Cream

1 kg rice
2 litre milk
1 kg sugar

Method

Boil the rice with milk and sugar with cardamom seeds. Then slow cook it for 2 hours till the mixture thickens. Blend the mixture and cool it on ice bath. Freeze the mixture.

Pistachio Gel

1 kg pistachio nuts
1 litre syrup
water
1 kg sugar
Agar agar

Method

Boil sugar and water together to make a sugar syrup and set aside. Soak the pistachios in lukewarm water till they become soft. Blend soaked pistachios with sugar syrup for five minutes to keep the flavour and soft texture. Strain the mixture.

Almond glass

Isomalt sugar
Roasted thin slices of almonds

Method

Sprinkle the isomalt sugar on the silicon sheet on a baking tray. Sprinkle roasted almond slices. Place the tray in the oven at 100 degrees for a few minutes till the sugar melts. Keep the almond glass out to cool down.

To serve

Place one small scoop of pistachio gel, then one scoop of rice ice cream. Top it up with almond glass pieces. Decorate it with silver foil and serve.



Zorawar Kalra’s Jalebi Caviar with Pistachio Rabri

This recipe gives traditional Indian elements a fun twist.

Jalebi Caviar

250g jalebi mix
20 ml water
40g ghee

Sugar stock

60g grain sugar
30 ml water
1g saffron

Pistachio Rabri

1.6 litre milk
80g grain sugar
40g cardamom powder
20g pistachio nuts

Garnish

80g saffron foam
1/2 saffron sigma
80g fennel sprig

Method

Add water to the premix jalebi and make a smooth mixture. Fry the batter in ghee using a perforated spoon so as to give small beads of the same. Add saffron flavoured sugar syrup to these beads and mold onto a star shaped plate. Pour rabdi around the moulded jalebi. Garnish with pistachio juliennes and saffron.