By Michael Kim

Actually a breakfast food, I couldn’t bring myself to put Kesari out there. This dish is so sweet and rich that in the context of a cookbook, I have to call this a dessert. In any other context, though, I’d call it the perfect metaphor for the afterglow of morning dalliance.

The ingredients to start the alchemy:

2 tablespoons of ghee

Golden raisins, enough to fill the palm of your hand

Broken cashew pieces, same amount as raisins

1 cup of cream of wheat, quick cooking

Melt the ghee in a small and lightweight frying pan over medium heat, and saute the raisins first, until they puff excitedly. Use a metal sieve to scoop them out onto a dish. Saute the cashew pieces next, until they turn golden and a bit foamy. Scoop them out on top of the raisins. Next, pour the cream of wheat into the hot ghee and stir with a spatula until fragrant and the ghee is absorbed by the grains. Take the pan off the heat.

For the next step, you’ll need the sweet and aromatic ingredients:

½ teaspoon ground cardamom seeds

Pinch of saffron threads

1 ¾ cup of water

1 cup of sugar

3 tablespoons of ghee

Put the water into a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil. Add the cream of wheat and stir, stir, stir. Add the sugar and saffron, and stir, stir, stir. Add the ghee, cashews and raisins once the cream of wheat grains look crystalline. The cardamom is the last sigh. 

Serve with black coffee at sunrise. That’s my kind of dessert.