Recipes

Cook with the ghaani

Everyday Indian recipes, made with Truly Cold Pressed oils and bilona ghee.

Panchamrit, a small round brass bowl of panchamrit on a dark weathered wooden puja chowki
Festive Sweet

Panchamrit

Cool, pale and slightly thick, sweet with a soft sour edge from the curd, and the tulsi leaf that sticks to the...

Prep 10 min Cook 0 min Serves 6

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Dhaniya Panjiri, a shallow brass thali heaped with dhaniya panjiri on a dark weathered wooden table
Festive Sweet

Dhaniya Panjiri

Dry, crumbly and eaten by the spoon straight off the thali. Roasted coriander, ghee, crushed makhana and small hard grains of mishri...

Prep 10 min Cook 25 min Serves 8

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Jalebi, bright saffron-orange coiled spirals with a glassy syrup coating
Festive Sweet

Jalebi

Bite the coil and it cracks, then floods your mouth with warm syrup. Sunday morning, straight off the kadhai, before the crunch...

Prep 15 min Cook 30 min Serves 4

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Sooji ka Halwa, glossy deep golden semolina halwa holding soft ridges from the spoon, ghee glistening at the edges
Festive Sweet

Sooji ka Halwa

Glossy, golden and heavy with ghee, spooned hot into a steel katori with a raisin swelling on top. Twenty-five minutes from start...

Prep 5 min Cook 25 min Serves 4

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Sakkarai Pongal, dark honey-coloured sakkarai pongal heaped on a banana leaf, soft and glossy
Festive Sweet

Sakkarai Pongal

Dark, soft, jaggery-sweet rice with fried cashews on top and ghee that pools in the little craters where the spoon has been.

Prep 10 min Cook 40 min Serves 6

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Gulab Jamun, four deep reddish-brown glossy spheres half submerged in clear amber cardamom syrup in a shallow white
Festive Sweet

Gulab Jamun

Dark, glossy and warm, soaked through to the middle. Press one with a spoon and syrup rises around it.

Prep 30 min Cook 40 min Serves 6

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Gujiya, a pile of pale wheat-gold half-moon pastries with a twisted rope edge and a finely blistered surface
Festive Sweet

Gujiya

The shell breaks into blistered shards and the mawa inside is warm, grainy and sweet, with dry coconut and cardamom right behind...

Prep 60 min Cook 45 min Serves 18

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Rava Kesari, a warm saffron-orange rava kesari, soft and glossy
Festive Sweet

Rava Kesari

Glossy orange, soft enough to fall off the spoon, with fried cashews on top and ghee sitting in a thin shine on...

Prep 10 min Cook 25 min Serves 6

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Motichoor Ladoo, eight saffron-orange ladoos made of countless tiny soft boondi pearls
Festive Sweet

Motichoor Ladoo

Break one open and it falls into hundreds of tiny sugar-soaked pearls, still soft, smelling of ghee and cardamom.

Prep 30 min Cook 45 min Serves 8

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Chhena Poda, a very dark, almost blackened cracked top crust
Festive Sweet

Chhena Poda

The top burns almost black and cracks under a spoon. Under it the chhena is warm, moist and grainy, sitting on a...

Prep 40 min Cook 60 min Serves 8

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Moong Dal Halwa, deep golden-brown grainy halwa with visible ghee pooling in glossy amber patches
Festive Sweet

Moong Dal Halwa

An hour of stirring turns pale dal paste into grainy gold, with ghee pooling at the sides and a smell that reaches...

Prep 20 min Cook 75 min Serves 6

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Mohanthal, thick matte squares of dark honey-brown besan barfi with a visibly grainy broken edge
Festive Sweet

Mohanthal

Deep honey brown, grainy under the teeth, the ghee and roasted besan reaching you a second before the sugar does. One square...

Prep 40 min Cook 50 min Serves 20

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Khaja, a stack of four pale golden khaja
Festive Sweet

Khaja

You bite the corner and about forty paper-thin layers shatter at once, and the sugar syrup that soaked into them the night...

Prep 45 min Cook 45 min Serves 6

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Glassy amber jaggery peanut chikki snapped into rough pieces on a brass plate
Festive Sweet

Peanut Chikki

Roasted groundnuts set into glassy amber jaggery, rolled thin and snapped into rough pieces. Two real ingredients and about ninety seconds that...

Prep 10 min Cook 20 min Serves 20

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Deep red carrot halwa topped with pistachios and almonds, piled in a brass bowl
Festive Sweet

Gajar ka Halwa

Red winter carrots cooked down in milk for forty-five minutes, then ghee and jaggery, until it turns glossy and pulls away from...

Prep 20 min Cook 60 min Serves 6

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Steamed pleated modak on a banana leaf, one open showing coconut jaggery filling
Festive Sweet

Ukadiche Modak

A steamed shell thin enough to see the filling through, tearing at the first press, with warm coconut and jaggery inside and...

Prep 40 min Cook 30 min Serves 12

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Soft rolled crepes filled with coconut and jaggery, arranged warm on a plate
Festive Sweet

Patishapta

Thin soft crepes rolled around a warm coconut and jaggery filling, cooked on a pan wiped with ghee. They rarely survive the...

Prep 75 min Cook 40 min Serves 6

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Small sesame and jaggery ladoos piled in a copper bowl, one broken open
Festive Sweet

Tilgul Ladoo

Roasted til and melted gud pressed into small warm ladoos that crunch and then give way. Handed around on Sankranti with the...

Prep 10 min Cook 20 min Serves 18

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Creamy jaggery rice payesh in an earthen bowl, finished with chopped nuts
Festive Sweet

Nolen Gurer Payesh

Milk cooked down slowly with short fragrant gobindobhog rice, jaggery folded in off the heat, and fried cashews on top. Warm in...

Prep 35 min Cook 50 min Serves 4

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Golden porous Mysore pak cut into neat diamonds and stacked on a festive plate
Festive Sweet

Mysore Pak

Golden, porous, honeycombed, collapsing the moment it touches your tongue. Three ingredients, one hot kadhai, and one moment you cannot afford to...

Prep 10 min Cook 30 min Serves 16

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Round grainy wheat and ghee laddoos studded with almonds and pistachios on a bronze plate
Festive Sweet

Atta Pinni

Wheat flour roasted in ghee for twenty-five minutes, puffed gond, plenty of nuts and dark jaggery, pressed into balls while still warm....

Prep 20 min Cook 45 min Serves 18

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Golden puran poli torn open to show its jaggery dal filling, with melted ghee
Festive Sweet

Puran Poli

A poli rolled so thin you can almost see the sweet chana dal filling through it, roasted till golden spotted, with ghee...

Prep 45 min Cook 50 min Serves 8

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Golden malpua with crisp lacy edges soaked in dark jaggery syrup, served warm
Festive Sweet

Malpua

Lacy frilled edges, a soft middle, and the deep caramel of jaggery worked into the batter instead of a syrup. Fried in...

Prep 15 min Cook 30 min Serves 4

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Dark jaggery payasam with rice ada, fried coconut slivers and cashews in a tin vessel
Festive Sweet

Ada Pradhaman

Rice ada simmered in melted jaggery until it turns the colour of dark honey, thick coconut milk folded in warm, and crisp...

Prep 15 min Cook 45 min Serves 6

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