Naralachi Wadi – Coconut Barfi

Nariyal Barfi

On Janmashtmi a few weeks back I followed tradition and prepared olya naralachi wadi – Maharashtrian style fresh coconut barfi. Its super-sweet North Indian version made with desiccated coconut and sugar was a childhood favourite. I gaze at the delicate pink coloured confections in a mithai shop display with much nostalgia but rarely proceed to buy.

In the Delhi of the previous century, fresh coconut was a little treat – a few wedges bought off the street vendor during your brief impatient wait at a traffic light. A whole coconut was bought only when (ragi) idlies were on the menu, to make the indispensable coconut chutney. Such occasions were few and far between. With marriage came a whole different way of cooking and an entirely new pantry in which fresh coconut, shaved on a traditional scraper like this, was always in stock.

Coconut, in both dry and fresh forms, is a bit of a staple in a Maharashtrian kitchen. Often sprinkled over vegetables towards the end of cooking, it may also be roasted or ground, or roasted and ground, or fire-roasted and smashed, or pan roasted and pounded, before adding to a dish. This amazing little fruit, maligned for a long time by the reductivist modern nutritional science for being mostly saturated fat, has climbed back up the popularity charts to reign supreme as something of a superfood. In India the coconut tree has always been revered as a Kalpavriksha, the divine, wish-fulfilling tree. Some of you may remember a little story (in the NCERT class IV textbook from the 70s) about a boy in Kerala and his coconut tree that provided him with everything from food and shelter to material for his boat.

Well, the fruit is as versatile as the tree it comes from. It can be used in myriad ways at all the different stages of its ripeness. The inherent sweetness in fresh coconut combined with its unique texture makes it an outstanding ingredient in desserts. Ice cream made with tender coconut flesh and sweet coconut milk is my current favourite. Fresh coconut sweetened with jaggery is at the heart of hundreds of sweets all over coastal and peninsular India – rolled into laddus, steamed into modaks, pitha, and kozhukattai, you will be hard pressed to pick a favourite.

This festive season try my new recipe for

Olya Naralachiwadi Wadi

Fresh Coconut Barfi

1 whole fresh coconut, scraped (or grated), about 2 cups loosely packed
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup grated khoya, loosely packed
3 green cardamoms, powdered
fresh or dried rose petals, to garnish

10" diameter thali or 9" square pan, greased with a few drops of ghee

Combine the fresh coconut shavings, sugar, and milk in a heavy bottom pan and cook on medium heat till the sugar dissolves. Continue to cook at medium heat till the mixture begins to thicken and the mixture starts to come together, about 15 minutes.

Add the grated khoya to the pan and continue to stir and cook till the mixture leaves the sides and starts moving as a cohesive mass, about 10-12 minutes.

Remove the pan from heat and mix in the cardamom powder.

Pour the hot mixture into a greased thali and spread it evenly with a spatula. Sprinkle with rose petals and leave to cool completely.

Cut with a sharp knife into squares or diamonds, transfer to a lidded container, and store in the refrigerator.

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Mango Froyo

The day temperature is starting to soar. Soon it will be mango season. As it starts to hot up the mind naturally turn to thoughts of mango. All winter the containers of mango pulp from homegrown Amrapali mangoes just sit forgotten in the freezer.

I was on quite a roll last year. I’d made two kinds of ice creams with the bought cream but still had half the whole milk. which I turned into creamy yogurt. Don’t you love the malai on top of whole milk dahi? The following day as I reached for dahi to make the morning mango-smoothie/lassi, I thought the creamy dahi would be even better in frozen yogurt. The dahi had been cut and about a fourth of it already eaten. I tilted the dahi pot to drain as much whey as I could. As I set about grabbing the blender and other things, I took more dahi (made with regular 3% fat toned milk, the one that does not come in plastic bags!) in my big metal strainer lined with muslin. This dripped for not more than 15-20 minutes. You can skip this step if you are pressed for time; I don’t always do it.

Thick Mango Lassi

I blended everything with a stick blender and chilled the mix in the fridge as the container of the ice cream maker chilled overnight in the freezer. Next morning I churned it for a mere 15 minutes and transferred it to the freezer to chill for a few hours. Remember to remove the frozen yogurt an hour or more before it’s time to serve. That brings it to just the right temperature and level of thaw to taste the flavours better and also makes it easy to scoop.

Black Sesame Gelato

Well, I got me just the toy to make summer better – an ice cream maker! And, boy, have I been using it since! I’ve had it for a little over a week and have already covered my bases on frozen desserts – ice cream, sorbet, frozen yogurt, and granita. It has just brought out the creative cook in me like nothing else in a long time.

Every time we are in the vicinity of Connaught Place, we make sure to pick up a tub or two of Tender Coconut ice cream from Natural’s, our favorite flavour. When I finally agreed to add another gadget to my kitchen tools, this flavour was going to be the litmus test. If I could re-create reasonably good tender coconut ice cream at home, then giving over some kitchen retail to the new gadget could be deemed to be well worth it.

Before I could even make a list of the ingredients I needed, The Husband, as he drove off, called to say he was sending the coconut vendor my way. I answered the bell, hesitated briefly, and asked for two coconuts. I handed over two bowls to the vendor, one to hold the tender coconut water and the other for the coconut flesh. When I went to check he was scraping out the flesh from what looked like a pretty mature coconut. He had assumed I would prefer it for making chutney. I requested a really tender coconut, one with malai.

Ragi Laddoo for Diwali

What better reason to post after a long gap than Diwali! It’s a low-key Diwali at home this year; Baba, my father-in-law, left us recently, and the son is also studying far away. But marking Diwali with some frenzied activity in the kitchen still feels natural and so I made these quick laddoos last night after a regular day at work. I shared a few pictures in my Instagram stories which had many asking for the recipe and I thought why not “revive” the blog with a quick recipe that anyone with half an hour to spare can make.

All you need is ragi (finger millet) flour, jaggery (unrefined cane sugar), ghee, almonds, and cardamom – all healthy, minimally processed ingredients. I stocked up on the first two ingredients at the just-concluded Women of India Festival 2017 at Dilli Haat showcasing organic products manufactured by women. These laddoos are a great way to include millets in our diet. I will need to make more to share since we’ve already polished off half the lot and it’s not 24 hours since I made these!

Ragi Laddoo
Makes 18 small laddos