A jelly that never firmed up

What are food blog events for? To inspire to kindle our imagination ? To get ourselves creative? Explore new cuisine ? or revisit an old-time favorite ? There might be so many but when Priya of Akshayapaatram announced Thai cuisine I was very much intrigued to try some new recipes.

After much learning I enlightened myself that no where in my neighborhood I can find the right ingredients and my routine life will never allow me to travel different parts of the city in search of them. So I in a humble tone settled down with a simple dessert from the cuisines of Thai which I found in Tarladalal. Its a layered fruit jelly. The ingredients and combinations were very inviting but somehow my taste buds could not pair up the coconut milk with any other fruits (a conservative foodie :() Hence I thought I shall make a coconut jelly alone with my favorite flavorings.

I bought some agar agar to make my jelly intact and sampled with 1 cup of thick coconut milk. I don’t know where I missed. Did I not like the flavor it rendered ? Did I not cut the agar-agar tiny enough ? psst. Not sure! Some how my jelly never got firm. So the second time I completely omitted the agar-agar and just took a thick first milk from a whole fresh coconut. I got just this much (the photo below). So imagine how thick it should be. And this time instead of refrigerating I put the cups in the freezer for 2 hours. Wow, when I taste it from the spoon it not only tasted fabulous but was creamy enough like a milkshake. I loved it so much and liked the cups clean. So I wanted to share this cool refreshing treat with a floral note that is perfect for this summer.

Ingredients:

Fresh grated coconut (packed) – 2 cups

Fresh rose petals (the Indian variety ) – 10-15 petals

Sugar- as per taste (I used 1 T spoon)

How to make it ?

Boil 1/2 cup of water and pour over the grated coconut. Use two shallow cups dividing the grated coconut between them and pour the water evenly between the two. Cover them and leave them for half an hour. Now squeeze the coconut with your hand or use a hand blender run it till you get a thick paste. Run the paste through a sieve and you will get the thick milk. Add little more water if required and do this process again until you get 1.5 cups of thick coconut milk. Now this coconut paste can be used in curries or stews.

Mix the sugar to this and bring it to the stove top and simmer for just a minute in low heat. On seeing the first bubble take it off the stove and add the rose petals and cover. Let it come down to room temperature and fill them in two cups and cover and freeze for 1 hour. It will not solidify as there is nothing to encourage the same but it will become thick and creamy and the floral scent of the rose petals getting infused deeply. Have it as a refreshing dessert or pour it over a piece of cake and relish!

And this how I missed the deadline for the event but I should be thankful to Priya for being the inspiring point of this refreshing cooler!

Note: Priya has generously accpeted this as an entry for her <a href=”http://akshayapaatram.blogspot.com/2009/03/its-vegan-world-thai.html”>It’s a Vegan World – Thai</a> which is a brainchild of <a href=”http://earthvegan.blogspot.com/”>Vaishali of Holy Cow</a>. I am so happy! Thanks a ton Priya!