Wish you all a Happy Vasant Panchami !🌷🌻🌼🌺🌸🍃🌳🙏🙏..May Mother Goddess Saraswati bless us all with the light of knowledge and wisdom and rescue us from the darkness of the ignorance and gloom.

Bidding adieu to the winter with Vasant Panchami which is synonymous with basanti colour marks the beginning of the spring season, which is coincidently also a season of the juicy oranges which are at their last stages of display for the year. So, its natural that this fruit also becomes a part of the offering to the Goddess and a part of its celebration. I also love the fruit as well as this festival and try to combine these two in my own ways. Usually in Bengal, this fruit in its last season of availability, when its acidity almost diminishes and its juice content reduces, is used to make one of the best desserts of Bengal, the Komlakheer. I love this Komlakheer, which I have been having since our childhood when our late grandmother used to often prepare it during the season. My aunt and my mom continued the legacy and now I am trying to replicate it’s taste while attempting to prepare it by myself. It looks and tastes awesome and this bequest is required to be preserved. So, I am sharing with you our own recipe of Komlakheer for you to relish its wonderful flavour.

RECIPE :

Ingredients:

1. Milk – 500 ml.
2. Orange – 2 large.
3. Orange zest – ½ tsp.
4. Sugar – 3 tbs or to taste.
5. Almonds (chopped) – 5 to 6.
6. Raisins – A few.

Preparation:

1. Peel the oranges and separate the individual segments.
2. Carefully peel each of the segment to take out the orange coloured juicy flesh of the orange. (Note: This step is little time consuming and requires patience as the orange’s juicy flesh should be extracted carefully so that the juice doesn’t come out & remains intact).
3. After collecting the juicy flesh of orange in a bowl, sprinkle some sugar, mix nicely and keep aside.
4. In a pan, slightly caramelize the orange pulp with sugar over a low flame. Just take care not to mash the pulp while you caramelize it.
5. Bring down the fruit pulp from the flame & keep aside.
6. Boil the milk in a pan & reduce it to half by stirring in continuously over a flow flame.
7. When the milk is thick enough add orange zest, raisins and chopped almonds, mix well and switch off the flame.
8. Bring down the thickened milk mixture from the stove and let it cool down.
9. When the milk is completely cooled, add the caramelized orange pulp mixture to the thickened milk and mix them together nicely. (Note: Do not add the orange pulp before cooling the milk, as it may curdle the milk)
10. Your delicious Komlakheer in now ready, chill it for sometime and then immerse yourself in the heavenly ecstasy.