Mishri & Sugar Candy

Mishri is sugar syrup crystallised slowly into large, clear lumps. In Tamil it is kalkandu, in Telugu patika bellam, and the variety grown on cotton threads is dhage wali mishri. Palm candy, panangkalkandu, is made the same way from palm sugar and has a faint caramel colour. It sits alongside jaggery and palm jaggery under jaggery and mishri.

Many families keep mishri for the temple and the home shrine, where it is offered as prasad with dried fruit. Crushed with roasted saunf, it is the sweet mukhwas passed round after a meal. It is cooked into kalkandu pongal and kalkandu bath, dissolved into warm milk with saffron,. Palm candy is traditionally stirred into hot milk with pepper in Tamil homes.

Large crystals dissolve slowly, so crush them in a mortar before adding to milk or a pan. Mishri does not spoil and keeps for years in a closed jar, but it will cloud and stick if left open in a humid kitchen.