Chira

Six types of tastes are described in the Bhaga Shastra – salt, sweet, sour, hot, bitter and pungent. It states that every meal should include all these tastes, so that the appetite is satisfied and the tongue is neutralized by all the tastes being together. As per the instructions in Bhaga Shastra, in order for all parts of the body, mind and brain to function properly, a balanced diet of all these tastes is a must.

Further, the purpose of having all six tastes is to balance the tridoshas in the body, namely vaata (acidic), pitta (alkaline) and kapha (phlegm). Every ingredient used in Hindu cooking is classified as per their dosha properties. For e.g. too much of vata foods such as flat beans, corn, jackfruit, Bengal grams, will lead to belching, itchiness or prickliness on the skin. Excess of pitta foods results in giddiness, acidity and imbalance in the brain and mood disorders. Excess kapha food leads to chills and cold.

Bhaga Shastra further classifies foods into rajasik, tamasik and sattvik types. Rajasik food makes one feel agitated, aggressive, lustful and egoistic. Tamasik food makes a person lazy, sleepy and depressed. Satvik food gives clarity to the person and brings him peace of mind leading to bhakti (devotion), tripti (fulfillment) and ananda (bliss). It is therefore not surprising that the Bhagashastra has a huge variety of sweet dishes made from rice, broken wheat, flattened rice, millets, maize, lentils (both split and whole). Many of these sweets are made during festive occasions – with certain sweets made specifically on a particular festival. For e.g. pongal in the Tamil New Year festival of Thai Pongal, kolukattai or modak for Ganesh Chaturthi, saffron sweet rice for Basant Panchami in Punjab, sandesh for Durga Puja in Bengal, karah prasad in celebrating festival of Sikh Gurus, kheer and laddoo in almost all Hindu festivals, payasam in South Indian festivals, especially Onam, and the list just goes on. In fact, India has the largest variety of sweet dishes in the world.

Ingredients:

Ghee – 1 palam

Wheat Grits – ¼ padi

Milk – ¾ padi

Brown Sugar – 10 palam

Raisins – 2½ palam

Almonds – 2 palam

Cardamom Powder – ¼ palam

Saffron – 4 r.e

Ghee – 5 palam

Rock Candy – 5 palam

Method:

1. Heat ghee in a pan. Add semolina and fry until light brown. Heat milk
in a pan and when it boils, add the semolina.

2. Stir well. Add brown sugar to it. Add raisins,almonds and cardamom powder. Almonds should be soaked in hot water, de-skinned, sliced and fried in ghee.

3. Dissolve saffron in milk and mix it with the dish. Add ghee and keep it for 5 minutes.

4. Powdered rock candy is added before serving the halwa.

HCS has the copyright of all its publications.  No part of these publications may be reproduced in any form without the prior permission in writing to HCS. This does not preclude the free use, in the course of implementing standard, of necessary details mentioned above. Enquiries related to copyrights to be addressed to KAILASA.