Persian Rice Cookies
Here's the latest recipe I tried for the first time. Persian Rice Cookies. Again & again I am astonished & happy to discover the similarities between Indian & other cuisines. This one for example tastes & looks very much like the Indian Milk Pedha. If you compare the 2 recipes, you'll see they are very similar.
This is one of the sweet spots of food blogging for me : broadening my horizons and at times discovering that we have been looking at the same view from different angles.
Persian Rice Cookies
Adapted from Source
Ingredients
for Rose Syrup :
3/4 sugar, 1/4 cup water, 1/4 tsp lemon juice, 1/8 cup rose water
1.5 cups rice flour, plus more if required
1/2 cup melted ghee (melted clarified butter)
2 egg yolks+2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp cardamon powder
a handful of finely chopped pistas, plus more for garnish
Procedure
Syrup : In a saucepan, bring the sugar & water to a boil on med-low heat & simmer for 2 min. Remove from heat, stir in rose water & lemon juice. Cool to room temp. The syrup should not be too thick.
In a bowl, beat the yolks & 2 tsp sugar, add the ghee, cardamon powder & beat well. Stir in 1.5 cups rice flour & handful of finely chopped pistas. Add enough syrup to be able to form a dough (knead with hands) which doesnt stick to your hands. For that add more flour or more syrup, as required.
Make walnut sized balls of the dough, lightly flatten, place 1 inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 15 min in a 350 degrees pre-heated oven. At the end of the baking time, the cookies should start to crack on top & turn white, which means they are done. Mine did crack but stayed a pretty yellow (as you can see from the photo). I took the photo after they were reasonably cool & still yellow . Now completely cooled, they are light yellow.
Dont handle the cookies until they cool for a bit. Then, sprinkle very finely chopped pistas over the top & lightly tap in place. Store in an air tight container only when completely cool.
Verdict
Delicate, elegant, yummy. If you like Pedha you'll definitely like this. Compared to the Pedha, these are less sweet & not really fudge-like. Thats probably because of the rice flour while Pedha uses milk powder, which is inherently sweeter & creamier.
Oooh...and the rose syrup is simply seriously divine ! I didnt require all of it, so dreaming of ways to savor the remaining.
Pedha is something Indians usually buy from sweet shops. But after this, I am confident of making it at home. And will definitely do so during Diwali and Ganapati festival. Would love to make the Persian cookies, but they have eggs, which wont do for Hindu festivals. Hmm...I guess I will make them for Christmas instead :).
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