RAJGEERA KHEER / AMARANTH PUDDING

Rajgira Kheer … delicious and healthy pudding or kheer made with Rajgira / Amaranth grains, milk and nuts. This is one of the tastiest  dessert you can make with rajgira and is the best way to include this healthy grains in your kids diet. The leaves of Amaranth are very popular in South India and used in a lot of dishes from stir fries to curries, but seeds are not that popular there. But in Maharashtra and North India, people used to cook dishes with rajgira seeds and flour during fasting. The flour is used for making breads, sweets and several other dishes too. Rajgira ladu is one of my favourites when it comes to food we have for fasting. Being a Maharashtrian, rajgira is very famous during fasting. So this Maha Shivratri need some dessert and so I prepared this kheer . The texture and taste is definitely something to enjoy.  Rajgira kheer is calcium rich and can be given to babies from 1 year as a quick dessert, but make sure to add powdered nuts instead of whole nuts while prepareing this kheer for babies below 2 years.

INGREDIENTS:

1 Cup Amaranth / Rajgeera Seeds

1 lit Milk

4-5 tablespoon Sugar [adjust according to your palate]

1 tablespoon Raisins

1 tablespoon Chopped Nuts

Few Pistachios for garnishing

1 teaspoon Cardamom Powder

1 tablespoon Warm Milk

Few strands of Saffron

METHOD:

STEP 1 – In a small bowl, add 1 tablespoon warm milk and soak saffron strands in it and keep aside.

STEP 2 – Heat milk in a sauce pan till it starts to boil.

STEP 3 – Once the milk reached to near boiling, add sugar and mix well till it get dissolved.

STEP 4 - Now add the popped rajgeera seeds and give a nice stir and cook further. [see notes]

Stir occasionally on medium heat.

STEP 4 – Cook further for about 10 minutes or till the rajgeera are cooked.

STEP 5 – Add chopped nuts, raisins, cardamom powder and saffron milk in it and give a nice stir.

STEP 6 – Cook further for 5 minutes, switch off the heat,

garnish with some pistachios and rose petals and kheer is ready to serve.

Serve   it hot / warm / chilled as you like and enjoy.

NOTE: * To begin with the recipe of making Rajgira kheer, first the rajgira seeds has to be popped. Heat a heavy bottomed kadai on low heat. Add 2-3 tablespoons of rajgira seeds at a time. It will start popping immediately. As they keep popping, transfer the popped seeds on a plate or bowl and repeat the procedure with the rest of the rajgira seeds. Here for my recipe I used store brought popped rajgira, so I skipped that step.