Rice pudding or kheer is widely cherish milk sweet among dessi's. You can just sense its importance as it is the first dish a bride makes after her marriage.
Mostly our marriages are arranged. Bride and groom are young with almost zero experience of maintaining new relation. Bride and groom usually don't know about each other let alone you talk about their mutual understanding.
I wonder why kheer? Bride's head is flooded with chaos and confusion about what ifs and why's and I am soo confused and scared to make wrong moves. And she is sitting by her stove, a pot filled with milk left to boil. Keeping a keen eye on milk, because when it boils it overflows. She had to get out of her head and be in the present. It is the kheer making day and the house is filled with guests. She had to make kheer right to prove everyone that she is a good home maker.
When the milk boiled, she lowers the flame and add grind rice. Two very different things just like her and her hubby. She had to cook them till rice swells and comes up. The flame had to be low, because with patience comes better things.
She have a big wooden spoon, whom she use to continuously scrap the bottom, so that it don't burn.
The rice keeps settling down. She moves spoon. The rice particles comes up. Yeah like their love. You have to make effort to see it. Artificial. Make up. Not real.
Slowly the rice swells and lightens. And without moving spoon, they comes up. Moving with the boiling milk.
OMG. She is the spoon of the house. Fire is burning continuously. She had to move, scrape, make things right. Make effort to care. Pretend they are in love. If done right kheer would be delicious. If not, their relation will have a burn.
Rice so swelled, that it starts to melt away, making milk thick, now she have to move forcefully. She keeps scrapping.
It's almost thick now. Time to add sugar. But wait, not just now. A little more thick will do. If she add sugar right now, the rice won't cook further. That's the side effect of sugar, the rice stop melting.
Now, the rice is perfect. She adds sugar. Tastes it. Sugar is a bit heavy. But she knew once cool down, kheer will lose some of its sweetness. Pour it in dishes and let it to cool down.
In the evening, after the big meal, her kheer is served. Everyone is smiling and looking at her with eyes, happy and filled with love. Maybe that's what she needs to do. Make her home a happy sweet home. Her morning time-consuming kheer was worth the sweetness, that make this strange new house her home.
After some years, their relation turn out to be just fine. All she had to do was to keep her relationship demands on low flame and keep working to melt her husband. Her husband, like the rice, melt away, slowly but he did. Untill….
…her confession to love. Although it turned their relationship sweet, but it stopped her husband from melting. Never the less, she is contended. Their understanding is thick. Just like her first kheer.
KHEER RECIPE
Ground rice to coarse not powder, Otherwise you will end up making firni not kheer.
INGREDIENTS
Milk 2 liters
Rice about 1/2 cup
Sugar 1 cup
Pistachio or almonds chopped for garnish
DIRECTIONS
Boil milk, then add rice. Keep stirring untill the milk consistency is like pudding. Add sugar. Cook further 10 minutes so tha sugar melts. Pour in dishes. Garnish. Keep in fridge to cool down.
Whenever you feel any relation falling apart, love lost, feeling frustrated rather than overwhelming love that you always dreamed of, just make kheer. You know what i meant.
Enjoy.
