Recipes for an Indian Jewish Festival
Poha, or flattened rice, and fresh or fresh frozen shredded coconut can be found at Indian or other specialty food stores.
Serves 6
4 cups thin poha
1 cup fresh (or fresh frozen) shredded coconut
½ cup raw sugar, or more to taste
8 cardamom pods
¼ cup sliced almonds
¼ cup black raisins
¼ cup finely chopped dried dates
optional fresh fruit garnishes: sliced strawberries, bananas, oranges, apples, pears, grapes or grapefruit
1) Add the poha to a large bowl, and cover with boiling water; stir until poha softens, 30–60 seconds, then drain well through a fine mesh strainer. Discard water, and return cooked poha to the bowl. Stir in the coconut and ½ cup sugar.
2) Use your fingers to open the cardamom pods; place the seeds in a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder, discarding the shells and skin. Grind until finely ground, and stir ground cardamom seeds into the poha mixture. Stir in the almonds, raisins and dates; taste, and add more sugar if desired.
3) Spread the mixture on a platter, and surround with desired fruit garnishes.
Siona Benjamin
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Dive In
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Will the next pope be good for the Jews?
-
Yiddish איבערזעצערין קאַרעד אָברײַען שרײַבט בוך וועגן די שטערן סימאָר רעכטצײַט און מרים קרעסיןTranslator Caraid O’Brien writing book on Yiddish stars Seymour Rechtseit and Miriam Kressyn
זי שטעלט אויך צונויף אַ פּאָדקאַסט מיטן בראָדװײ־אַקטיאָר האַל ראָבינסאָן אין דער ראָלע פֿון רעכטצײַט.
-
BINTEL BRIEF How do you deal with invitations from someone whose behavior drives you nuts?
-
Fast Forward An Israeli think tank used AI to analyze 4,400 American synagogue sermons. Here’s what it found.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.