Kheer (Bengali sweets)

Kheer (ক্ষীর)
Alternative names Meowa (মেওয়া)
Place of origin Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent
Region or state Bengal
Serving temperature Room Temperature
Main ingredients Cow's milk
Variations Khoa

Kheer or Meoa is a sweet from the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent.[1] It is not only a sweet, it is also used as main ingredient of many other sweets. In North India Kheer (Payesam) is different dish. But in Bengal, in the same spelling and sound, Kheer is different. It is also different to Khoa.

Preparation

To prepare kheer, pure and genuine cow or buffalo milk is the only ingredient. Pure milk is being boiled over an hour to make one-third of its original volume. Then kheer is being prepared. Sometimes to make more sweet and different taste suger, arrarute, suji are mixed with it during boiling. But the taste of original one is far different and delicious than it.[1]

Whereas to make Khoa boiling process extended to make the original volume up to one forth or one fifth. Then khoa is prepared. Khoa is harder than kheer. And this hardness also makes difference in taste. This thing differs these two dishes.[1]

Uses

As in Bengal kheer is one of the most important ingredients for making sweets, so it has a high demand in the market. In terms of hardness, it can be categorised in two forms.

  • Khoa – hard kheer
  • Kheer – semi-liquid kheer

Khoa is used to make some bengali sweets like Cansat etc. Kheer is used for Rosmalai like sweets, where small ball of channa are immersed in kheer.

  • Kheerkadam (ক্ষীরকদম)
  • Cansat (কানসাট)
  • Kheer er borfi (ক্ষীরের বরফি)
  • Pat kheer (পাতক্ষীর)

Kheer in literature

Abanindranath Tagore wrote a story of two Queens of a King, titled as Kheer er putul,[2] means a doll made with kheer. In this story, one queen made her virtual son with Kheer and sent for marriage. Somehow Shathi Thakur (a Goddess) ate it but captured as she stole this doll and in reply, she gave a son to that queen.[3]

In idioms

There is a Bengali idioms circulated in Bengal i.e.

Means if you keep your patience in your work then you must see the success. As after devoting over an hour to boil milk makes delicious Kheer.

This idioms is common to bengali people. And it's used frequently to advise someone.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Mukherjee, Bipradas (1311 Bengali calender). Mistinno pak (মিষ্টান্ন পাক). Bengal Medical Library. Check date values in: |year= (help)
  2. ↑ "ক্ষীরের পুতুল - উইকিসংকলন একটি মুক্ত পাঠাগার". bn.m.wikisource.org (in Bengali). Retrieved 2018-01-10.
  3. ↑ "ক্ষীরের পুতুল, অবনীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর/Kheerer Putul, Abanindranath Thakur". animikhRabindranath. 24 February 2014. Retrieved 2017-12-16.
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