I have been making phirni since last 4 years. Whenever I crave something sweet and there is lots of milk leftover, I cook phirni. It’s a sweet Indian dessert with rich flavour and beautiful smooth texture. Over the years, I have found some hacks to make perfect phirni, which I will share with you.
The main ingredients needed are uncooked rice, sugar and milk. That’s it. Other titbits are added just to enhance the flavour.
Ingredients (for 12 servings in a small bowl)
- Uncooked rice (125 gm)
- Milk 2 ltr
- Sugar (according to taste)
- Almonds cut lengthwise
- Little Pistachio crushed (for garnishing)
- 5-6 Cardamom seeds (finely grounded to a powder)
- 3-4 Kesar strands
Procedure
- Wash the rice and soak it in water for half an hour.
- Drain it and spread it on a tray or clean cloth to let it dry completely.
- Grind it in a mixer to a fine powder.
- If it is not dry, it will become a paste which will then turn into clots when put in milk. So, make sure the rice is completely dry, before grinding it.
- How fine you grind the powder, depends on how you want the phirni to turn out. If you want soft silky texture, grind the rice to maximum. If you want a little coarse texture, grind it to powder but a little coarse.
- Put the milk to boil on a kadahi (preferably not a pan).
- When 1 boil comes, turn the heat to lowest and put all the rice in it.
- Put the rice little by little, all the time stirring the milk with a ladle.
- If you don’t stir, clots of rice will form which will not taste good.
- Keep on stirring the milk every minute or so. Very important step.
- Put all the cut almonds. They will also cook along with rice and milk.
- Cook on lowest heat
- Meanwhile, powder the elaichi seeds (cardamom). Do not use its peel as it feels weird when it comes in mouth. (Save it and you may use it in tea.)
- I use chakla and belan (rolling board and pin) to powder.
- Put powdered elaichi, kesar strands in milk and let it simmer.
- Let it simmer till the rice is cooked and milk becomes almost 1/3rd in quantity. Remember to keep on stirring every minute.
- Now add sugar. Usually I taste and keep on adding sugar accordingly as we don’t like the phirni to be too sweet.
- When the sugar is dissolved completely, turn off the heat and transfer the phirni in small bowls. You must do it while its hot, otherwise it will set and will be difficult to pour.
- Garnish each bowl with crushed pista (pistachios) and let it cool completely.
- Cover each bowl with a cling wrap or aluminium foil and keep in refrigerator. (Not Freezer)
Once I bought small kullad (mitti ki choti matki used for tea) and served phirni in them. Makes a great party dessert.