Handulu (Rice) Bondibai

Handulu Bondibai feels special. That’s probably because we are used to eating it on those special occasions such as Eid, naming of a new born and so on and so forth. It’s also rainy day food because there’s nothing comfier than gobbling down warm Bondibai with some Kulhimas when it’s pouring outside.

Ingredients:
  • 1 cup uncooked rice
  • 2 cups sugar
  • ½ cup thick coconut milk
  • 4 cups water
  • 6 inch piece of raanbaa (cut them into 2 pieces)
  • 3 inch piece of cinnamon
  • 5 cardamom pods (ends snipped off)
  • 5 tsp. rosewater (or to taste)

Instructions:
  1. Wash the rice. Do it until the water runs clear.
  2. Add the rice, water, raanbaa, cinnamon and cardamom to a pot, and cook until the rice softens a bit. Make sure not to cook it all the way because we still have to cook it with sugar and coconut milk. So perhaps the aim should be to make the rice lose it’s raw and hard look. Also, you can keep the heat on medium throughout the cooking for this one.
  3. Add the sugar and while stirring, cook until the mixture thickens and becomes sticky. Before you do this, you can of course remove the raanbaa, cinnamon and cardamom if you want to. We just left them in there. It’s going to take a little bit of time for it to become thick and sticky, but you’ll need to stick around the stove to stir it from time to time, especially a bit towards the end when you’ll have to stir it almost continuously.
  4. Add the coconut milk, combine it well, and let it cook for a couple of more minutes so that the rice can soak up the coconut creaminess. You’ll have to keep stirring here.
  5. Add the rosewater, combine again and switch off the stove. Here’s something to remember; the Bondibai is going to lose moisture when you take it off the heat, so don’t overcook it, let it look glossy and moist.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Maafuh Maafuh is a Maldivian Traditional dessert dish which now has become more of an occasional dish. It is often eaten on Maahefun. It is best served with sliced coconut and smoked tuna. Ingredients: 2 medium sized ripe bananas 3 tbsp. sugar (or to taste) ¾ cup grated coconut ¾ cup bimbi flour Instructions: 1. Heat up a pan, and once its well heated, add the bimbi flour and dry roast it on medium heat until the bimbi takes on a golden brownish colour and you can smell it’s nutty aroma. Once it’s roasted, remove from pan and set it aside to cool down a bit. 2. Peel the bananas, put them in a bowl, add the sugar, and using your fingers mash them together until well combined and there are no overly large banana chunks.  3. Add the grated coconut to the banana sugar mixture and use your fingers to mix well again. 4. Finally, add the roasted bimbi flour to the mixture and mix well. Have a taste and see if you want to add more sugar. Also, in the following step
Read more
Image
Boakuri Bambukeyo Boakuri Banbukeyo was one common dish that our grandparents used to eats during the 70s or 80s. The main reason was bread fruit trees was very common that time and rice and fllour are not readily available. This was a sweet dish that our grand parents made and taste really good. It’s a great treat on its own or with coconut slices or dried fish.   Ingredients: 1 small breadfruit (4 cups when chopped) 1 ½ cups sugar (add more if you want to) 6 inch piece of raanbaa ½ cup water Instructions: Peel the breadfruit and remove the core. Cut the breadfruit into bite size pieces. Our pieces were roughly an inch long and a half an inch wide. The really important thing here is that you cut them all to one size so that they can cook evenly. Place the breadfruit, water and raanbaa in a pot and cook the mixture until the breadfruit stops looking raw and takes on a slight yellowish tint. For us it took around ten minutes for that to happen. We were cooking
Read more