Calories in Seviyan Kheer

Seviyan kheer in this recipe is 10 g of vermicelli browned in half a teaspoon of ghee, then cooked in 200 g of milk with 1.5 tablespoons of sugar. The recipe makes one bowl. Ten grams of dry vermicelli is a loose pinch between the fingers, so the bowl is thin and milky, the way it is often served warm at home. A festive sheer khurma or semiya payasam, with dates, nuts fried in ghee and milk boiled down until thick, is a heavier preparation than the one measured here. Of the 20 sweets it is compared with, this bowl ranks 12th from the lightest.

Carbohydrate provides 52% of the energy, fat 37% and protein 11%. Sugar is the largest single piece of the carbohydrate, with the vermicelli a distant second. The fat is milk fat with a trace of ghee, and the 7.8 g of protein is nearly all from the milk. Because this recipe uses less milk than the rice and makhana kheers in the same set, it comes out a little lower in energy and in protein.

A bowl of seviyan kheer comes to about 13% of the daily energy requirement of a sedentary man and 17% of a woman's. Two bowls are 558 kcal and three are 837 kcal. The kheer has 1.2 g of fibre and modest protein, so it does not hold hunger off for long on its own. It sits most comfortably as the sweet at the end of a lighter meal, or as half a bowl of about 140 kcal after a heavy one. On Eid or at a family lunch where several rich dishes are on the table, a small katori lets you taste it without it becoming a second meal.

This bowl carries 29.7 g of sugars, counting milk's natural sugar with the sugar added, and 11.6 g of fat, most of which is the milk's own. Vermicelli is made from refined wheat, so the kheer offers little fibre to slow anything down. If you have diabetes, or have been told to limit sugar for any other reason, take the portion advice of your doctor or dietitian over any general figure, including this one.