Bengali Narkel Naru Recipe

Today I bring you an unusual dessert that in fact, comes from Bengal. They are Narkel Naru made with coconut, milk, sugar, and cardamom. Narkel Naru is a sweet from the Indian region of Bengal. The Narkel Naru cannot be missed during a religious ritual to worship one or more deities as well as to celebrate a spiritual event.

The ceremonies can take place both at home and in the temples, and there are also annual festivals such as the Durga Puja and the Lakshmi Puja. Coconut ladoo is also specially made during Diwali festival in India or during festival season or marriages.

Nariyal Ladoo is not only made for different festivities, but it is a sweet that is prepared at any time of the year. This dessert inevitably reminds me of my childhood. To make these sweets, it used to take several days since, on the one hand, there was so much to cut the coconut and then grate it that make the streets smell like coconut.

Apart from that, it has an ingredient called khoya or mawa that is cooked from the whole milk and that has a very slow preparation. Nowadays, in any supermarket you can find both grated coconut and mawa, so the preparation time has been reduced to more than half.

We now show the process of preparation.

Servings: 2
Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 20 mins
Total Time: 35 mins

Ingredients

125 g grated coconut
200 g sugar
300 ml whole milk
100 ml condensed milk
10 cardamom seeds

Narkel Naru Recipe

In a pan at medium heat, mix the coconut with the sugar and stir to avoid sticking to the pan. When they acquire a golden color, we raise the temperature a little and add the milk slowly. Keep stirring. Raise the temperature and add the condensed milk. Add the ground cardamom seeds and stir. Lower the temperature and stir until the mixture is more compact for at least 15 minutes.

There will come a time when you will see how, when removing the mixture, the pan remains clean. In short, part of the mixture will stick to the spatula with which you are stirring. If you want, you can put off the heat. Keep in mind that the more you cook it, the harder the narkel naru will be. In addition, this dough hardens a little when cooled.

Remove the pan and wait for it to cool a bit. When the mixture is still hot start making the balls. This is important because, the dough hardens when it cools. So if you wait too long, you cannot make the balls anyway. So take a little dough with your fingers and make the balls, rolling the dough between the palms of your hands.

Once they are finished, put them and leave them both inside and outside the fridge.