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It was raining yesterday and I decided to test my culinary skills. I took the challenge of making the kesari, a famous South Indian sweet dish. All that is required to make this delicious dish is a glass of Rava, some ghee for frying, some cashewnuts, sugar and water. The quantity of water should be twice that of Rava and sugar can be 2 - 2.5 times that of Rava. And of course you need some patience and some people to share the dish with. Ah..I forgot one more important ingredient... the kesari color powder. There's a lot of rumor going around that this causes cancer; You may neglect this though, if you want a white kesari.

The color of course, is an individual preference. Environmentalists can go for green, Aussie supporters yellow, sailors blue and communists red. But the South Indian household seems to have a penchant for orange color and hence, orange is the color with which kesari is identified with. Kesari finds it place often when the family of a boy visits a girl's place to fix the marriage. Perhaps kesari is a litmus test to see how the would-be bride cooks. So, the bride's family takes special care to prepare the dish to a perfection. They serve it along with the Bajji(you wouldn't have missed this one, if you have visited the Marina or the Besant Nagar Beach). So we can say kesari is the first dish the groom eats in a bride's house. You can see how important this dish is. Usually this is followed by a coffee which the girl serves the groom's family. This is the time when she is evaluated to be or not to be. Spilling the coffee on groom's mother can be considered as the height of embarrassment. And.. this is the time when exchanging glances is encouraged, for a change. And this is followed by an audition. Here the voice of the girl is tested.No rap/pop/filmi songs are allowed. Breaking down at high pitch is a strict no no. Finally if the girls passes all the tests, she is allowed to make kesari in the groom's kitchen.

And now coming back to our kesari preparation. All you need to do to get kesari is to fry the rava in a tava with some ghee till the rava becomes golden brown and keep it aside. Now in the same way fry the cashew nuts too. Be careful this time, the time in which cashew nuts change their color from golden brown to black is not very long.

Now add bring the water to a boil and add the fried rava in it, cook it till the rava comes to a thick consistency, now add the sugar and the rava will loosen up. Keep cooking for 10 minutes. Add the cashew nuts and mix it well. Turn the gas off and taste it. I assure you, you'll love the taste. You can go in for a slight variant of this - the pineapple kesari. The only additional work to do is to toss some diced pineapples to it. And don't forget to favor the Aussies this time. Some pineapple essence can also be added to get the flavor.

There is a complement to kesari by the name Uppuma, which can also be made using the rava. This is a common breakfast in South India. But more about this, later.