Kalyana Mysorepak
Kalyana Mysorepak
Kalyana Mysorepak
Mysorepak, the name is enough to make one crave for this absolute melt in the mouth sweet , one of the traditional sweet from South India. that is invariably prepared in all households for many reasons, be it a small celeberation , a festival or just a craving .
while the sweet doesnt have many complicated ingredients and is usually prepared under 30 minutes , it does have certain fine skills and techniques which must be followed and there can be no second chance while you are doing it .so it is a hit or miss for many . It is one of the reasons many shy away from preparing this amazing sweet . But you will learn from every attempt that no book can teach you, unless you get down to prepare a small qty,learn from the mistakes if any, your next batch will be even better if not the best . Believe me thats how I have become good in preparing Mysorepak . we did not see any videos or read books, just our mothers recipe and watched the preparation some times in the kitchen ,but otherwise it was mostly our own attempts .
The dominating taste is that of ghee, sugar and chickpeaflour , the combination comes together like a poetry. the first bite that you have will give you that satisfying pleasure .
Earlier it was thought only one variety was prepared commonly , that of the porous, light crumbly textured Mysorepak , also known as the Kalyana Mysorepak as usually all south Indian weddings will have this on the menu and also given to guests as a takeaway along with small servings of other sweets and savories like mixture . The Mysorepak is a must though . Weddings and Diwali is not complete without tasting Mysorepak.
Ingredients :
1 cup sieved besan
1 cup sugar
1 cup ghee
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup water
Method
First grease a suitabe tray with depth in which you will pour the mysorepak mixture .keep aside . Next sieve the besan flour well, and keep aside .
Next take a sauce pan, melt the ghee and add oil to it,heat both and keep it on another burner,make sure it remains hot throughout the preparation of mysorepak,so keep the flame on very low till the process is over.
Take another heavy bottomed pan, iron kadai or a non stick ,add 1 cup sugar , and 1/2 cup water, switch on the gas,allow the sugar to melt, add 1-2 tbsp milk , to remove the dirt if any, scoop out the floating scum with a filter or a tea sieve. See the video .
Continue to allow the sugar to bubble till frothy and one string consistency is reached, test the consistency with your finger and thumb,it must form a string , which will be sticky, that is enough .
Now either switch off the gas or keep the flame to very low, and add the besan flour to the hot syrup with one hand and stir with the other . If you have anyone to help with pouring of the flour, it will be useful though not needed if making a small qty . Time is of essence . Switch on the gas as soon as you finish adding all the flour,now keep stirring continously to remove all lumps, and now start adding hot oil ghee mixture one ladle at a time , when you add the oil ghee, it will sizzle which is good , as it means the mixture is getting fried and also cooked at the same time ,add the next ladle only after the mixture has absorbed the oil ghee.and mixture looks like halwa .
Add the next ladle and contiue to stir, notice mixture getting thicker and also getting frothy at the sides , . At the last stage it will look like over fermented idli dosa batter .
finish adding oil ghee in batches and when you add the last ladle ,you will see the mixture will no longer absorb oil ghee,but will start releasing the excess oil ghee on the sides, push themixture to one side of the pan and you will see excess oil ghee coming out , which means you now have to pour it into the greased tray quickly . when you pour into the tray ,the excess oil ghee also willflow out ,some people willkeep the tray tilted so that the ecseedewill drain to the lowerside, i do not do this as it may change the shape of the mysorepak, i just leave it as it is .
Do not level the top of the mixture, after you pour into the tray ,just gently pat with a flat spatula, or tap the tray and it will settle.
Before it dries out completely ,make light knife marks to slice later ,do not use the knife all the way through,just make the slices very lightly by scoring .
After an hour, the mysorepak will be ready.
Take a plate and turn the container upside down , the mysorepak will fall off like a slabo nto the plate , also the pieces will come off easily .which means you have made the perfect batch of mysorepak . note the centre of the mysorepak will be dark in colour and porous on top . That is why aluminium tray with depth is recommned as used by the sweet shops, because it retains heat and will cook the mysorepak as it cools in the tray, thats why the centre part looks more dark when aluminium tray with good height is used . I did not have a suitable tray so i have used a heavy glass container .
Enjoy delcious crumbly porous mysorepak.
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Kalyana Mysorepak
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