Quicker Goan Vonn Recipe

Goan Kheer or Kazarachi Soji

Let’s make some delicious Goan vonn – or kazarachi soji as we call it in South Goa. It’s a flavour-packed Goan dessert made with chana dal (split chickpeas), jaggery, rice flour, and coconut milk. You could think of it as a Goan kheer. Mine is a quicker Goan vonn recipe. So do check it out.

Goan vonn or kazarachi soji could be one of the most delicious kheers you’ve tasted. In this Goan kheer, instead of milk, we use coconut milk. To speed up this recipe even more you could use canned coconut milk or coconut milk powder which you could reconstitute with water.

This Goan vonn recipe is one of those must-try ones. It’s super-tasty and super-easy to make as well. So do give this a shot.

Another Goan dessert worth trying is the Goan sheero which is a healthier version of the classic rava sheera, you could say.

Ingredients

½ cup (90g) chana dal

1 tsp oil

¾ cup (160g) grated jaggery

1 ½ cup (150g) grated fresh coconut

(For extracting approx. 1 ¾ cup coconut milk)

¼ cup rice flour

½ tsp salt

1 tsp ground cardamom

¼ cup chopped cashew nuts

Approx. 1 tbsp sugar

Procedure

1. Wash and soak the chana dal in 1 ½ cup water for at least 4 hours or overnight.
2. Don’t discard the water in which you soaked the chana dal. Add 1 tsp oil to the soaked chana dal + water and pressure cook this for 10 minutes. (After the cooker attains full pressure, lower the heat and let the dal cook for 10 minutes.) This way, the dal will be really soft but not mashed to a pulp.
3. Extract coconut milk from the grated coconut. First grind the coconut finely with ¾ cup water, and then subsequently two more times with ½ cup water each time. Each time transfer the ground coconut to a sieve placed over a bowl and press it down with the back of a spoon to squeeze the coconut milk out of it. Collect all the coconut milk (around 1 ¾ cup to 2 cups) in the same bowl.
4. Lightly mash the cooked chana dal with a spoon or potato masher so that just around half of it remains intact. Transfer the chana dal along with the water in which you cooked it to a vessel. Add the salt and jaggery to it. Cook it on medium heat, stirring it now and then till the jaggery dissolves.
5. Add the cashew nuts and the coconut milk. Stir everything and then add the ground cardamom and continue heating the mix.
6. In the meanwhile, make a slurry with the rice flour and ½ cup water.
7. When the chana dal mix comes to a boil, lower the heat, and stir in the rice flour slurry. Keep stirring continuously as the vonn thickens. After it comes to a boil again, increase the heat to medium and cook the vonn for 3-4 more minutes. Adjust the consistency of the vonn by adding around ½ cup water or more according to how thick you want it to be. Only remember that the vonn will thicken some more as it cools.
8. Finally, sample the vonn and adjust it for taste adding a little sugar if it needs to be sweetened some more. Stir it well and when it comes to a boil, turn off the heat.
9. You could move any leftover vonn to the fridge. Whenever you want to have or serve it, re-heat it, adding a little water to the vonn to adjust its consistency. (However, Goan vonn can also be had cold.)

Enjoy!