Recipe for Life: Shanti Ram Bhattarai


  01 July, 2020  ·    Astrid Murray

Welcome to Recipe for Life! This week Samir Bhattarai shares Shanti Ram Bhattarai's story as well as his recipe for Kheer.

Last year Centacare Multicultural Services worked closely with students from Trinity Bay High School on a story writing project called “Recipe for Life.”

The aim of the project was to strengthen intergenerational relationships and celebrate culture through the sharing of stories and recipes. 

At the end of the project we were able to create a recipe book which we have had printed. You can view the whole recipe book here – we are sure you will find plenty of colour and inspiration in its pages.

We would like to thank Wendy Chiu from Trinity Bay High School, musician Emmaline Anderson and our bicultural workers who were such an important part of this project.

Over the coming weeks we will share a story with it's recipe.

Shanti Ram Bhattarai
by Samir Bhattarai

Shanti Ram was born in Bhutan in 1965. He has 4 children. Because of persecution in the county he had to leave Bhutan with his family. They left Bhutan and moved to Nepal now he is living in Cairns with his family. He has been living in Cairns since 2011.

He really enjoyed soccer in his youth and he used to play for his local team. In Nepal his work was picking tea leaves. His favourite food from his childhood and homeland is Kheer. Kheer is a very sweet rice pudding. He would have it during celebrations and when they felt like eating it. He didn’t really know how to make it as his mum used to make it for him. He also liked Samosa but didn’t eat it as much as he ate Kheer.

In 2011 he left Nepal and moved to Australia where most of his family are living. Now he is living with his family and has most of his family around him and he is glad that they came to a really good country. His adult daughter Hema moved to the United States. She lives in Iowa, he speaks to her often on the telephone and through social media.

The most significant thing that happened to him was being able to come to Australia but also a sad event was leaving family behind and having his daughter go to a different country. His parents greatly influenced him and helped him to become the man he is today.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup of rice
4 cups of milk
¼ cup of sugar
2 tablespoon raisins
¼ teaspoon of ground cardamoms
¼ of flaked almonds

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Boil the rice and milk in a deep pan.
  2. Simmer over low flame, stirring occasionally until the rice is cooked and the milk becomes thick.
  3. When done add sugar, raisins and cardamoms.
  4. Stir up until the sugar is dissolved properly.
  5. Transfer into a serving dish and garnish with almonds
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Recipe for Life: Shanti Ram Bhattarai
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