Cuisine: Madhya Pradesh
Category: Dessert
Prep: 15 min
Cook: 30 min
Serves: 4
Difficulty: Medium
🌿 Vegetarian
Rice kheer cooked in a banana leaf packet — the ritual pudding made for Satyanarayan puja and religious observances in Madhya Pradesh.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup short-grain rice
- 1 litre full-fat milk
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 tsp cardamom powder
- A pinch of saffron soaked in 2 tbsp warm milk
- 2 tbsp cashews and raisins
- 4 fresh banana leaves — cut into 25 x 25 cm squares
Method
- Cook the kheer first: boil 1 litre milk with washed rice.
- Cook on medium-low stirring every 5 minutes for 30 minutes until rice is dissolved and the kheer is thick.
- Add sugar, cardamom, saffron milk, cashews and raisins. Cook 5 more minutes. Remove from heat.
- Soften banana leaf squares by briefly passing over a gas flame for 3 to 4 seconds on each side until flexible but not charred.
- Place one banana leaf square on a flat surface.
- Spoon 3 to 4 tbsp of the warm kheer in the centre.
- Fold the leaf over the kheer to form a neat packet.
- Secure with a toothpick or thin bamboo pin.
- Alternatively the kheer is served in the banana leaf as a bowl without closing.
- The banana leaf imparts a subtle grassy, slightly astringent note to the kheer during contact.