Indian coconut sweets

This is my entry for Meeta's monthly mingle this month taking on the theme of Bollywood Cooking. It's a recipe from Anjum Anand's "Indian Food Made Easy" for coconut sweets.

I found that I needed to simmer the mixture for longer than the 20 minutes that the recipe recommended and also needed more heat. I also think it needed more than 3 minutes once the butter and cardamom was added but in my rush to get to work I wasn't able to leave it any longer so I shaped it into sweets and covered with the pistachio. It's still really tasty but a little sticky too.



Here is Anjum's version of the recipe.

Coconut Sweets

Makes 18-20

Ingredients
125g fresh grated coconut, or dessicated coconut
250ml full fat milk
110g sugar
1/4 tsp ground green cardamom seeds
1 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp chopped pistachios, to garnish

Recipe
1. Place the coconut, milk and sugar in a non stick pan. Cook over a low heat for about 20 minutes and stir often. The mixture should come together as a lump - if you take a little bit in your fingers it should be easy to roll into a ball, if it is too moist cook for a few more minutes then try again.
2. Add the cardamom and butter. Stir in and cook for another 3 minutes. The coconut will colour slightly and will come together easily.
3. Roll into little balls using the palms of your hands. Sprinkle the pistachio over the top of the sweets to garnish, then store in an airtight container in the fridge.




I've also been given an "Excellence" award by Giz and Psychgrad over at Equal Opportunity Kitchen (a blog I have totally fell in love with by the way!) so I get the honour of picking a few more people to pass it on to. I was given this award a while ago so I'll pick some different people this time -

1. English Mum in Ireland is a fantastic blog - a mix of recipes, country life and being a dog owner which are all things that appeal to me!
2. Sarah at Homemade. I know she's been given this award before but she is fab and makes a great variety of dishes!
3. My good friend Sio has just recently joined the food blog world and set up Cake Creations. She's a fantastic baker and already has some great recipes up. Head over and give her a welcome to the food blogging world!
4. Miss.Sarah is another very good friend of mine who's been blogging more recipes recently, which I'm really excited about because she has catered the last 2 years for 300 at a summer event and produced truely incredible dishes!
5. Ryan over at Ryan's Recipe Blog is a very well travelled foodie indeed! He shares some great dishes and also some photos from his international travels to make us guess where he's been or what he's eaten!