Phirni - Traditional Indian Custurd

Phirni is a traditional Indian dessert made in north India. Its a simple sweet dish made of rice, milk and sugar. Easy to make and tastes best both hot and chilled.

Traditionally its made by soaking rice for a couple of hours and grinding it to a smooth paste and then cooking it with milk and sugar. Cardamom powder is used to give it a distinct flavor.

But trust me I have no patience to do that. So I took the shorter route and made a little bit of  modification to suit a lazy girl like me :)  I used rice flour instead of whole rice and to give it a twist I used vanilla essence instead of cardamom powder.And trust me on this too, it tastes great this way as well.

Herez my version:

U will need :

2 cups milk

1/4 cup sugar (increase if u like more of sweet)

3 to 4 tbspn of rice flour  (adjust the quantity as per the consistency of the phirni you need)

1 tspn of vanilla essence.

Dry fruits for garnishing (almonds, cashew, pistas etc)

To make it :

Boil milk and add sugar n boil till sugar is dissolved. Take a little of the milk in a cup and mix the rice flour and vanilla essence in it to make a smooth paste. Add the paste slowly into the milk and stir continuously. Mix well and allow it to cook. Let the mixture simmer until its done. Ensure u stir it often to avoid it from sticking to the bottom and burning. Add the dry fruits roasted in ghee and serve warm or chilled.

Note :  Its a custard like dish so the consistency can be make pourable or thick like halwa. I like mine a little on the thicker side so I added an extra spoon of rice flour and let it cook longer so that it thickened better.U could even add condensed milk to give it some thickness.