I have wanted to make the Doodh Wada for a very long time, I had bookmarked when I first came across it in a vintage recipe book belonging to my mother. It felt a little weird to fry rice balls in ghee and plunge them in sugar syrup and let them swim leisurely. Yes, they sound like Gulab Jamuns made with rice, they also make you believe that it much be a grandmother’s take on repurposing the leftover kheer or to make gulab-jamun like mithai in absence of mawa!! It was after I came across another version of Doodh-Wada made with rice-flour cooked in milk, dough balls shaped as desired, fried in ghee and sprinkled with sugar, chopped pistachios and almonds, I realised this is some Mithai in its own right. Both of these seem like cleverly crafted recipes to become a part of the elaborate festive Thali spreads.
Also, my being part of the Shalikuta has rewired my approach to rice and other heritage grains(more on that later), it makes me explore for ways we celebrate rice and other non-mainstream grains in our cuisine, the value a particular kind of grain (now heritage or heirloom) brought to the recipe!! So the Doodh-Wada, that hero’s small-grained aromatic rice had to be made to honour the finest heritage rice varieties I had found in an old rice mill in Vansda, Dharmapur. “This is Khushboi, It is a rare one, we get it from Madhya Pradesh, our neighbouring state. The supply of heritage rice varieties have been consistently dwindling, but there are families who would just eat such heirloom rices hence we have to stock them!!” the rice mill owner had explained. Looking at the movement restrictions under the current scenario, I am not sure I will meet Kushboi again, !! Just a whiff of the rice was enough to make me fall for its intoxicating aroma. I could not bring myself to make dhokla or khichri with it!! It was a lesser known rice I had to celebrate with a lesser known recipe!!
The recipe is from Garyu Etlu Garyu by Rukshmaniben adn Binduben Danthi. I have also come across this recipe in few other 1950s cookbooks.
Doodh Vada
Ingredients
- 1 cup rice, any small grained, aromatic rice
- 2 cups milk
- 1 cup sugar
- ghee to deep fry
- 1/2 teaspoon green cardamom powder
- pinch of saffron strands
- rose petals to garnish
Instructions
Wash the rice, soak for 30 minutes.
Drain the water, mix rice and milk and pressure cook the rice.
The rice will be thoroughly cooked and the mix will be dry.
Allow it cooked rice to cool down a little.
Knead the cooked rice like you would a dough to achieve smooth texture ( I was required to sprinkle some milk as the rice was too stick to mush/knead).
Shape like Gubal Jamun sized balls/vada or cylinders.
Mix sugar with water and cook to prepare single string consistency sugar syrup.
Add green cardamom and saffron strands to the sugar syrup.
Deep fry the Vada in ghee.
Immerse the in the warm syrup for some time.
Serve warm or room temperature.
Notes
You can also not soak the Doodh Vada in sugar syrup but sprinkle with fine grained sugar and garnish with almond and pistachios slivers.
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