Mysoor Pak

Mysoor pak is my daughter’s favourite sweet. I prepared it on her birthday on August 12th.

In slightly ancient times I would invoke “great conversations” in my family for being ‘a girl who dint know cooking’. As a result of those great conversations, a few weeks before my marriage I stayed with many of my aunts to learn some recipes. One of these “observing and learning sessions without getting hands dirty” was with Paapa Sithi. Every day would be a feast, she would prepare sweets and lots of other special dishes so that I could learn to cook. As the ‘bride to be’ I was only required to enjoy the visual treat and scribble on a notebook the details of preparation.

After marriage I never tried preparing Mysoor Pak as it involved some techniques though I experimented quite a bit with the Western sweets. I had become popular among my friends as a wonderful cook who could prepare super soft idlies, delicious cookies and a variety of cakes. About two years after my marriage, while chatting with my regular circle, one of my friends said, “Mysoor pak is very a difficult sweet, I have never got it right”.

I am compulsive optimist looking out for kitchen adventures all the time. So statements like these which make a dish sound impossible will immediately invite my dismissal!!! 😀

Almost implusively I said, “Actually it is very easy and can be prepared at home”. Little did I realize that I would be asked to prepare it that very instant. Vijaya’s logic could not be argued with – all ingredients were available, here were a bunch of people dying for some good Mysoor Pak and there was a cook who found this dish simple – perfect setting for a Mysoor Pak preparation!!!

Dismissal of the impossible comes easily but doing a dish that one has never tried before successfully to prove that its easy is a different ball game altogether – especially when there is no precious notebook of “amma and sithi recipes” to help you. Bravely without a trace of twitching on my face, I tried to recollect how Sithi had prepared Mysoor Pak. I went on to make this sweet and it turned out to be a great success. I too din’t realize that I could such an expert with sweets!:D Must have been all the baking perhaps?!! Or do genes play a role in this? From that day I have been making this “melting in mouth” Mysoor pak!

This is a post on the special request of Nithya, who asked for “melting in mouth” mysoor pak. Nithya, do let me know how this turns out.

Ingredients

• Besan (Kadalai mavu) – 1 cup
• Sugar – 2 and 1/2 cup
• Ghee – 3 cups + 4 teaspoons for spreading on plate.
• Water – 1 cup

Method

1. Mix Besan with 2 teaspoons ghee and rub well to remove lumps.
2. Smear 2 teaspoons ghee on a steel or glass plate and keep it aside.
3. In a heavy bottomed pan mix sugar and water and simmer on a low to medium flame.
4. In another Stove melt the ghee and keep a deep ladle ready in it.
5. Once the sugar melts totally, add little ghee and all the besan and keep stirring.
6. Keep the flame in medium and add ghee a little at a time every 1 minute, stirring all the while.
7. After all the ghee has been added, cook till the mixture forms a honey comb like appearance. This is the most important step for getting the Mysoor Pak right.
8. Once the whole mixture becomes like honey comb, pour it into the greased plate. The whole mixture will fall as a lump unlike other sweets.
9. Allow to cool for just two minutes and mark with a thuduppu or sharp knife to cut into desired shape and size.
10. Your melting in mouth mysoor pak is ready and you can serve and eat as you please.

Tips

Heavy bottomed pan is a must. If you don’t have buy a hawkins or prestige pan.

Keep things ready before you switch on the stove as stirring continuously is a must.

Try a small amount till you are confident. But don’t give up. 🙂

In case the mysoor pak you made is semi solid, just cook again in the same pan on a low flame for a few more minutes.

Update: This goes to Asha of Foodie’s Hope as an entry for RCI-Karnataka</em>