What is Firni

Phirni also called as firni is a classic slow-cooked Indian sweet pudding made with basmati rice, milk, nuts, sugar and scented with cardamom powder or saffron or rose water. So phirni is nothing but coarsely ground rice pudding.Phirni is best served in clay cups, a unique feature that helps absorb excess water besides lending phirni its characteristic fragrance.Phirni is believed to be originated in Persia and came to India through Mughals.

Difference between phirni and kheer

The taste and ingredients used for making phirni and kheer are almost the same. But the difference is in texture, cooking method and serving method. – Phirni is made from soaked, coarsely ground rice paste while kheer is made from whole basmati rice.

About the recipe

There are a lot of different varieties of phirni based on the flavours and additional ingredients. There are saffron phirni, badam phirni, apple phirni etc. As now the season of mango has started, this time I decided to make phirni with my favourite fruit mango. The recipe is very easy but the result is delicious. Just you have to take the right proportion of ingredients to get the perfect texture of phirni.

Recipe details

• Preparation time: 5 min(excluding resting time)
• Cooking time: 45 min
• Serves: 4-6
• Difficulty level: easy

Ingredients

• 1 litre Full fat milk +2 tablespoons more(optional)
• 3 tablespoon Basmati rice (soaked for an hour)
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 2 medium size ripe Mango
• 3-4 crushed Cardamom
• 2 tablespoons full fat Milk powder(optional)
• 2-3 teaspoon cruahed Pistachios to garnish
• Few Mint leaves to garnish (optional)

Method

Clean rice and soak with water for an hour.

After soaking grind to a coarse paste with water. Note that don’t make smooth paste. For the right texture of phirni, rice should be little grainy in texture.

Now take a heavy bottom pan and pour 1 litre of full fat milk and place to stove top to cook.

Cook in high heat and when milk comes to boiling point, reduce the flame and add in the prepared rice paste. Stir well to mix.

Cook in medium low heat until rice grains become soft. Stir in between so that rice and milk don’t get stick at the bottom. Milk also will get thicker on the process of cooking rice.

It will take about 25-30 minutes of slow cooking to make the rice soft and the mixture thick.

Now remove from heat to make the mixture cool . This step is necessary as we can’t add mango to hot mixture. The milk may split and we don’t want that.

In the meantime peel and chop the mangoes roughly. Keep 3-4 pieces aside for garnishing.

Blend the mango pieces to make a paste. Here also it is not necessary to make a very smooth paste. Its good if some little chunks of mango pieces remains with the paste.

Pour the mango paste to the milk and rice mixture (cool or warm).

Stir nicely and again place to stove top with medium heat. Cook again for about 8-9 minutes by stirring constantly.

Add in sugar and crushed cardamom and mix nicely.

Mix 2 tablespoon of milk powder with 2 tablespoons of milk and add in to the phirni. This is totally optional. But adding milk powder enhances the taste and richness of the phirni.

Cook further for 2-3 minutes or until the mixture become thick porridge like consistency. Remove from heat . Note that when phirni will cool down it will be thicker. And after refrigerating, it will be like almost yoghurt like consistency.

Transfer the phirni to individual earthen pot or to a big earthen pot. If you dont have earthen pot transfer to ceramic bowls. Phirni generally serves in earthen pots as it helps to get the right texture of phirni by soaking extra moisture from the phirni.

Let the phirni comes to room temperature and then put in the refrigerator (cover with cling film) to chill.

At the time of serving, granish with some fresh mango pieces, crushes pistachios and mint leaves.

Enjoy the chilled and creamy phirni in your iftar or any time during summer.

Note

Following the same procedure you can make phirni with any other fruits like apple, custard apple, apricot etc.

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