Puranache Dive

Dish type: Traditional Indian Dessert

Time taken: 15 min approx

Roasting time: 10 min

Quantity: 100 gms

Ingredients

Bengal gram dal                   125 gms

Jaggery                                 150 gms

Directions:

Cook dal in a pressure cooker with enough water (say twice the quantity of dal) till it is soft. Drain water completely. While dal is cooking….pound jaggery to powder form.

Mix both powdered jiggery and cooked dal in a kadai. Heat till jaggery melts. Continue stirring and heating the mix on low flame till water content disappears and mix turns into ball like consistency. It also starts leaving the sides of the kadai.  Grind this mass in a “puran yantra” or in a mixie. When done with a mixie, it becomes liquidy.  Keep it in the fridge for a few hours to allow it to cool down and become tight. Now shape them into diyas, place wick inside each of the diyas, fill diya with ghee . Use it to perform “Arati”

Tete – a – Tete:

Recipe Contributor Smitha Kiran Desai says “We pray to Goddess jivati to protect our children… on Friday of Shravan month. On Nagapanchami we Deshastha Brahmins make a recipe called Dinda. This is also made with puran. Puran is placed on a wheat roti. Roti is then folded into pocket shape and it is steamed. It is eaten with ghee.”

Rava Laddoo

Dish Type: Indian Traditional Dessert

Time required: 45 min

Yield: 30 nos. (approx. )

Ingredients

Sooji Rava                            2 bowl

PC: Sooraj Nair

Ghee                                       ¾ bowl

Cardamom                            4-6 nos.

Vegan sugar                         1 1/4 to 1 1/2 bowl, 
                                                        depending on how sweet you like

Mawa/khoya                        Made out of ½ ltr milk

Desiccated coconut or raw coconut 1/2 bowl

Broken cashews/badam and raisins 1/2 bowl

Milk for rolling

Directions:

Fry sooji rava on low flame adding ghee little by little. Towards the end add coconut, cashew/badam raisins. Continue frying for another 5 min

As you fry rava on the other stove, boil and reduce the milk to make khova ready.

Powder sugar and cardamom and add to rava mix and mix well

Add khova and mix well

Add hot milk and roll the laddoos. Rava Laddoos are ready.

Offer to Sun

Recipe Contributor: Ms. Sreeja M

Mysore Pak

Dish type: South Indian Dessert

Time required: 45 min

Yield: 35 to 40 pieces

Ingredients

Besan                                   400 gms

Brown Sugar                       500 gms

Pure Ghee                            500 gms

Cardamom                           2 nos. (powdered)

Sandalwood powder            ¼ tsp

Directions:

Fry besan till you can feel a nutty flavour. Mix this with cardamom powder, sandal powder, ghee and keep it aside. Boil sugar along with water (Sugar: Water = 1: 1.5) till it reaches 1 string consistency. Now pour besan-ghee mixture into this. Keep stirring gently and continuously till the mixture reaches a thick paste consistency and starts leaving ghee on the sides of the kadai. Now transfer it to a greased plate. It takes atleast an hour to set. Cut them to pieces of desired shape and size.

Soft Mysore Pak is ready.

Tete a Tete

Cardamom powder can be added either to sugar syrup or to besan mix.

Softness of Mysore Pak depends on the quantity of ghee (more quantity required than for rough looking textured type) as well as syrup consistency (1 string is must).

Recipe contributor: Ms. Sreeja M

Boondi Laddoos

Dish type: South Indian Dessert
Time required: 45 min

Yield: 12 nos. approx

Ingredients

For batter:

Besan                                  1 cup

Milk                                    Just enough to bring besan to idli batter consistency

Turmeric Powder                1/2 tsp

Sandalwood powder           1/3 tsp

Salt                                      A tiny pinch

For sugar syrup:

Sugar                                  3.5 cups

Water                                  Just enough to cover sugar in bowl

Cardamom                          2 or 3 nos.

Clove                                  5 to 6 nos.

Cashewnuts                        2 or 3 tsps (broken pieces)

Raisins                                2 or 3 tsps

For frying:

Pure ghee (or butter)          100 gms approx. for each batch of frying

Directions:

Mix milk (preferably Good Life milk), besan, sandalwood powder and turmeric powder. Bring it to idli batter consistency.

Heat 100 gms of ghee / butter in an iron kadai.

(to check if ghee is hot enough for frying, drop a drop of besan batter into hot ghee. If it flattens, it means batter is dilute. Add 1 sp of besan to adjust the consistency. If it forms a tail, it means batter is thick. Add 1 sp of water to adjust its consistency)

Before you begin to fry boondis, fry broken cashews and raisins, remove and keep aside.

Start preparing boondis using a boondi ladle. Using one hand, keep boondi ladle a little above the kadai. Using the other hand, pour batter on to the ladle so that it falls into the hot ghee in the kadai through the holes in the ladle. Wipe the ladle clean and dip it back into the batter. Use another ladle for frying and not the one dipped in batter.

Fry the boondis normally, don’t let it brown or burn. Ideally it is to be fried with sufficient ghee so that boondis have space to float. If you are comfortable using the extra ghee, do in small batches with lesser ghee. When boondis are in the last stage of frying, separate stuck boondis with light pressure.

Towards the end of boondi preparation, prepare sugar syrup to one string consistency and transfer fried boondis to sugar syrup.

Preparing Sugar Syrup:

Boil sugar in 500 ml water. Let sugar dissolve and boil for a few minutes till the syrup reaches a light thread consistency.

Add fried boondis, raisins, cashews, cardamom and clove to the boiling syrup. Let it boil for 2 to 3 min. When ladle starts getting sticky or stiff, switch off the flame. If syrup quantity is more, continue frying for another 2 to 3 min.

Let it cool down, enough for you to handle. .Add pinch of camphor and mix well. Transfer it to a wide basin, make portions and then form laddoos. Start making rough balls from these portions. Press well, but don’t squeeze out all the sugar syrup. Laddoos will become dry. Repeat 3 times. At this stage, it will be a well formed laddoo.

Boondi Laddoos are now ready. Offer to Guru/Jupiter

Tete – a – Tete:

For perfect round and dense laddoos, take out a ladleful of soaked boondis, powder them in a mixie and add it back to the rest of soaked boondis before forming them into laddoos.

Cardamom powder can be added either to sugar syrup or to besan mix.

It is important that sugar syrup reaches light thread consistency.

If batter is too thin or if ghee is not yet hot, boondi will absorb more ghee.

It is better to heat just the required amount of ghee for every batch of frying rather than heating larger than required quantity of ghee at a time.

Adding milk to besan softens the boondis.

Recipe contributor: Ms. Sreeja M

HALDI LEAF ADA (Sweet Rice Dumplings /Patoli /Panaga /Namkeen Ada)

Tak Tuk Tak Tuk…Hurry Hari Hurry Harry…Quick quick! Off to the farm….pluck please those lovely leaves that look like a lance yet make you dance to its fragrant flavour! A flavour that seeps deep in as you cook and lends a tad turmerish tinge to the finished dish when you look. Leaves that make dishes in your kitchen feel so divine! Widely favoured in food preparations for its herbal use in traditional cooking, cook with these fresh, broad leaves that are green in colour. Get the taste of a rhizome that’s yellow in colour.

Called botanically as Curcuma Longa but known popularly as Indian Saffron (though never a substitute for saffron), these leaves when layered with rice flour dough, filled with coconut-jaggery mixture and steamed in a steamer doles out dumplings with a sweet stuffing…do you now have an inkling what could this dish be? Read recipe right below.

Dish Type: Traditional Dessert

Time taken: 45 min. approx.  (15 min. for steaming + 30 min. for preparation)

Yield: 12 to 15 nos. approx.

Ingredients for Haldi Leaf Ada

For making dough:

Rice flour                    1 cup (200 gms. approx.)

PC: Dr. Harimohan Pillai

Salt to taste                 1 tsp

Water                          ¼ cup approx. (enough to convert flour to chapathi dough consistency)

For filling:

Jaggery powder          1 cup (200 gms approx. for high sweet taste)

Raw grated coconut    1 cup (200 gms. approx. or 1 medium size coconut)

Cardamom Powder     ½ tsp (optional)

Nutmeg powder          A pinch (optional)

For steaming

Turmeric leaves           10 to 12 nos.

Rice flour dough         10 to 12 lime size balls

Jaggery Coconut mix  2 to 3 tsps for each

Directions:

Pour rice flour on to a bowl. Add a pinch of salt. Mix well. Now start adding water little by little. Keep mixing the flour and water till you get chapathi dough consistency. Knead well and keep aside.

Spread turmeric leaf on a steaming vessel. Spread rice dough (1 lime size ball) on turmeric leaf . Thinner the layer of spread, better will be the taste. Fill in with jaggery coconut mix. Fold one half of the leaf over the other (either horizontally or vertically). Steam it in pressure cooker for 15 to 20 min on high flame. Make sure there is enough water in the pressure cooker. Switch off the flame. Take out dumplings from the cooker. Peel off the turmeric leaf from each of them. Top up these dumplings with loads of ghee!

Haldi Ele Adas (Sweet Rice dumplings using Turmeric Leaves) are now ready.

Tete – a – Tete

Recipe contributed by nonagenarian and expert cook, Smt. Parvathy, mother of Architect, Dr.

Harimohan Pillai

Instead of jaggery, salt can be used along with grated cucumber, ginger and green chillies to make the spicy version says Smt. Radhika Nair Pillai.

Similar dish is made in Bengal during winter for Pongal festival

Known by other names like Patholi in Konkani, Arasina Ele Kadabu in Kannada and Ela Ada in Malayalam

Banana leaf may also be used instead of turmeric leaf

In Maharashtra, cooked food is wrapped in turmeric leaves lending dishes a distinct aroma.

Soaking turmeric leaves in water for some time helps in easier folding.

Other options for making outer cover:

        Rice soaked in water for about 3 hrs and ground to a smooth, thick batter using minimum water. Add salt to taste

       Rice flour mixed with water to a thick batter consistency and kept aside for about half an hour. Add salt to taste.

If the outer cover is very thick, Ada looks like this. You dont see any shades of filling. Looks wise it's neat n nice. Not so taste wise since the bland taste of dough overpowers the delicious taste of filling. Also it requires more time for steaming.

Recipes viewed here are a part of  "Mangala's Potluck" section in this blog