Filling and packed with energy, Raab is a thick creamy comforting soup, especially when you are sick or on a cold winter day!
Raab is a thick soup made which can be made sweet or savory with various different flours. It is packed with energy and nutrition and very filling.
This recipe is very near and dear to my heart as it is the most comforting dishes. As children, whenever we were sick and down with a cold and did not feel like eating regular food, this is what my mom made for us. Because it was sweet and required no chewing, it was easy to drink. It was thick and filling to give us energy to recover quickly. When you are sick, typically you don’t feel like eating spicy, oily foods; this is a perfect solution for those times.
Warm, thick, smooth and creamy soup; it is so comforting that I now make it regularly even when I am not sick. On any cold winter day, this can be a perfect filling meal!
I like mine sweetened with Gur, some ajwain, made of wheat flour, ground edible gum, and nuts. Some make it savory with other flours like Raggi, salt and pepper instead; which is also very nutritious. However, if you have a sweet tooth like me, try this version.
Makes 2 cups worth (for me that’s 1 serving….)
Time: 15 mins to cook
Ingredients:
- 3 tsps wheat flour
- 4 tsps gur (Jaggery/cane sugar) grated, powder or small chunks to help it melt. You can substitute brown sugar, or white sugar. You can also use 2 dates, remove pit and grind into a paste. Adjust amount to your sweetness level.
- 2 cups of whole milk
- 1/2 tbsp butter or ghee
- 1/4 tsp dry ginger powder (soonth)
- Optional: 1/2 tsp ajwain seeds (Carom seeds)
- Optional: Pinch of elchi (Cardamom powder)
- Optional: 1 tbsp edible gum (gundar)
- 2 tsps almond powder/ground almonds. You can leave them in bigger pieces if you want the crunch
Method:
- In a pot on medium heat, add butter and gum. Fry it till the gum puffs up like popcorn. Remove and grind in blender to a powder. This is optional, you can totally omit if you don’t have or don’t like gum.
- In the same pot, to that butter add ajwain, nuts and wheat flour. Cook and stir for 5 mins till the flour smells toasty and nutty and light brown in color.
- Add rest of the ingredients along with the gum powder made earlier in step 1. Stir so there are no lumps and cook on medium heat for 10-15 mins. Keep stirring often so it does not stick. It should be at a rolling simmer and become thick consistency. The longer you boil, the thicker it will become. If you like it thinner, add milk.
- Enjoy while hot!
Tips:
- When you are sick you will not have energy to make it often, so make a bigger batch and enjoy for a couple of days, stores well in the fridge!
- Ideally the texture should be smooth so there is no chewing needed to make it easy to eat while you are sick. But if you like some crunch top with chopped nuts at the end.
- The trick to frying gum is to start it in cold butter/oil. Then it pops into nice airy bits. If you add to hot butter/oil it sometimes gets hard as rock and not good for your teeth!
- When using any flour as a thickener, the mixture must come to a complete boil to ensure the flour is cooked through.
- The color of the final dish will depend on what you used for sweetening. Even with Gur some are darker and some are lighter. So the final dish can range from a deep brown to a light beige, don’t worry about the color.