Onam special recipe: Dry Fruit Kesari

Ingredients:

1/2 cup dry fruits (chopped dates, raisins, cranberries and other nuts)
1/2 cup rava
3 tbsp sugar
2 tsp ghee
1 pinch cardamom powder
6 almonds
1 cup water
3-4 drops food color optional (yellow, orange or red)

Procedure:

Stir-fry rava with 1 tsp ghee on low flame till the smell of raw grain goes. Set it aside for later use. Saute dry fruits for 5-10 seconds in a pan with 1 tbsp ghee on low flame. Add water, sugar, cardamom powder and food color to them and increase heat to high flame. Add roasted rava to boiling water slowly and smoothen out any lumps and mix well. Reduce heat and keep stirring continuously till the mixture is cooked. One can know that the mixture is cooked when it starts coming off the pan easily. Grease a plate and pour `kesari` into it. Let it cool and get set. Cut it into smaller pieces and garnish it with an almond. Kesari is now ready to be served.