Bohra Kharak Recipe (Kharik)

Want some melt-in-the-mouth Bohra Eid Kharak recipe? These bite-sized goodies are made to perfection and are freezer friendly too! Your guest will keep asking for more!

Why this recipe is best?

• Most Kharak recipes call for soaking alone and don't require cooking. The dry dates stay firm like that.
• BUT when you cook it, it becomes very tender. Because we are soaking dry dates in milk and then cooking them in some milk. The milk catches all the nutrition and flavors of kharak.
• When we use the same milk to make mawa. The mawa has the flavor of date.
• While on the contrary, if you soak dry dates in water and discard the sweet water laden with nutrition, you waste much of the flavor.
• The recipe requires some time, but if you break the process into three days. Soak it one day and cook another day and fill it the day after. You can easily fit it into your busy Ramadan schedule. I usually start making this on 27th Roza.

Ingredients

In this recipe, you will need dried dates (kharak), milk, water, milk powder, condensed milk, almonds, pistachio and green cardamom powder.

Dry Dates are not soft dates. These are shriveled dates that are hard and sun-dried dates and they are also called "chuara" or "kharik". You can learn more about dry dates at Food NDTV.

How to make it?

1. Wash the dates thoroughly. They are laden with dust.
2. Take dry dates, milk, and water into the thick-bottomed pot. Heat the mixture to bring to a boil. 
3. Now soak the dried dates in it for 4 hours at room temperature in a cool place. Or up to 24 hours in the fridge.
4. Add more milk (about ½-1 cup) as required to dip the dates fully in milk.

5. Cook the dates on high heat for 1 minute to bring them to a boil then reduce heat to a very slow flame. Keep the lid covered until dates become soft for about 1.5-2 hours. Then remove the lid and cook further until the milk becomes very thick and the water almost dries. The total cooking time will be about 3-4 hours. Keep stirring at intervals.
6. Remove dates from the pot with a spoon leaving the thick milk (mawa) in the pot. Continue cooking the milk with constant stirring until all the water has dried. Adjust heat as needed.
7. To make the filling, take mawa in the bowl and add cardamom powder, condensed milk, and milk powder. Mix it to make a thick mixture that can easily be filled. If the mixture is flowing, add more milk powder.
8. Fill the mawa in the dates and garnish it with crushed nuts.

Variations:

This could be just two ingredients recipe as well that is just milk and dry dates. Just use ½-1 cup extra milk in the recipe so the level of milk is 1 inch above the date when cooking. This way you'll have more mawa in the end to fill all of your dates.

Then you do not need to add condensed milk or milk powder to fill in your dates. You can sweeten it with some sugar if needed and just add cardamom powder. The cooking time will increase more milk will take more time to dry.

No cooked version:

If you visited this page looking for an uncooked version of kharak. It is very simple just soak dates for about 24-48 hours in rose water in the fridge. When the dates are fully puffed, discard the liquid. De-seed puffed dates.

Next, mix sugar, rose water, crushed nuts, and cardamom in mawa. Fill this mawa in dates. You may fill dates with peera filling or kalakand instead.

Expert Tips

• Kharik tastes best when served chilled.
• Soaking time: You can soak the dates for up to 24 hours in the fridge. The minimum soaking time is 4 hours outside at room temperature.
• Always store kharak in an air-tight container as these love to soak bad odor in the fridge.
• You can freeze the leftover cooked kharak for up to 2 months.
• You can grind the leftover kharak and make its halwa.

FAQs

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