Recipe - Besan Barfee

6 ounce Chick pea flour; 1 One fourth c
180 g. also called besan
or Gram flour
1 cup Vegetable oil; 8 fl oz.
14 ounce Sugar; 1 One half cup or 395 g
One half teaspoon Cardamom seeds; ground
2 tablespoon Pistachios; unsalted
up to 3 tbsp
lightly crushed
1 tablespoon Almonds, blanched;coarsely
chopped
up to 2 tbsp

Anne's note: The original recipe measures the dry ingredients by weight;
these are the most accurate measures (I converted it to volume measures).

Sift the chick pea flour. Heat oil in a heavy, 1012" frying pan, wok or
saute pan over a medium flame. Put in the sifted chick pea flour. Stir and
fry 2 to 3 minutes until the flour turns a shade darker and is cooked (it
should taste fried, not raw). Put the flour into a large bowl, stir at once
and allow to cool.

Make a syrup with 1 cup/8 fl oz/One fourth litre water and the 14 oz/1 1/3 c/395
g. sugar by bringing the watersugar combination to a boil and then
simmering very gently for about 20 minutes or until the syrup reaches a one
thread consistency. (To test this, dip in a wooden spoon and let coat
slightly. Pinch some syrup off the back of the spoon with two fingers and
then try separating the fingers. One sticky thread should form. This is the
Indian method. If you have a better one, use it.)

Pour the hot syrup in the cooled chick pea flour/gram flour mixture. add
the ground cardamom seeds and the nuts and mix well. keep stirring until
mixture begins to harden slightly. (It should still be pourable.) Pour into
a 9 inch square cake tin, tilt tin so barfee mixture flows to the edges and
allow to cool. Cut into Three fourths inch cubes. besan barfee if tightly wrapped in
aluminium foil and then placed in a plastic container, freezes very well.

MAKES: 144 little cubes SOURCE: _Eastern Vegetarian Cooking_ by Madhur
Jaffrey posted by Anne MacLellan

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini