Barfi

Barfi takes its name from the Persian and Urdu barf, meaning snow, after the pale, set look of the sweet, and is generally held to have entered the Indian repertoire from Persia by way of the Mughal courts from around the 16th century, when Central Asian and Persian confectionery techniques were absorbed into north Indian kitchens. It belongs to the wider tradition of khoya-based sweets refined by India's halwai (confectioner) community, who reduced milk for hours over slow fires before sugar and flavourings were worked in. Its precise inventor is unrecorded; the popular tale that the cashew version, kaju barfi, was first made by a chef of the emperor Jahangir to mark the Sikh Guru Hargobind's release from prison is a folk attribution rather than documented history. What is certain is that barfi became, and remains, a benchmark gifting and festival mithai across India and Pakistan.

A neat diamond or square, pale ivory to butter-cream, matte unless mirrored under a leaf of silver. It is firm enough to hold its edge yet soft enough to cut with the side of a fork, melting on the tongue into a fine, faintly grainy paste with little to no chew. The taste is gently sweet and milky, rounded by cardamom, with the particular cooked-milk caramel note of khoya beneath; flavoured versions carry their nut or chocolate over that base. Eaten at room temperature, a piece or two at a time.

Everything depends on the state of the khoya and the sugar. Whole milk is simmered and stirred for an hour or more until most of its water boils off and the milk solids collect into a soft, granular mass — khoya — whose concentrated milk proteins and fat give barfi its body; shop-bought khoya shortcuts this step. The khoya is cooked with sugar over low heat: the sugar melts and the mixture is stirred constantly until it pulls away from the pan in a single mass, the point at which enough water has gone for it to set firm without turning hard or grainy. Cook too far and the sugar crystallizes and the slab dries and crumbles; stop too soon and it never holds a cut. The hot mixture is spread into a greased tray, smoothed, sometimes pressed with vark, and cut into pieces while still warm, firming as it cools and the sugar stabilizes.