Shamefully I have to admit the reason why I like the festival so much is that the prasad is modak/kozhukkata /kozhukattai. The rich taste of coconut and jaggery filling inside the rice/ wheat based outer covering is so mouthwatering! Hail Lord Ganesha! :)
Usually in laws make the traditional rice kozhukattai, vada and payasam as the offering.But the festival was falling on a Monday morning which meant that Rajiv had to go to work on time, Sid had school and Gautham had to be fed in between. So all my cooking tasks + the offering had to be ready by atleast 7.30 am. Also the fact that I like to experiment and try out newer things :P. So I decided that I will try the North Indian style fried modak which is wheat based. Anything which has a jaggery inside works :)!
For any such day my management expertise has helped me. I knew I would not be able to cook rice, curry and a side dish + prasad before 7.30 am. So I planned my morning ahead and finalised the menu. It would be methi chappathis and lady's finger fry for lunch to keep things simple. That way I could really concentrate on the main item of the day- the Modak.
I googled and read a few recipe but decided to customise the procedure to fit into the time frame I had-2 hours. I woke up at 4.30 am (an hour earlier than my usual wake up time these days). To ensure that Gautham did not disturb me for the next 2 hours, the first thing I did was to feed him. After putting him back to sleep I was ready. Here is the recipe I followed.
Ingredients
-Wheat flour -4 cups ( I usedAshirvad atta)
-grated coconut- 1 full coconut
-Jaggery-1 big piece. I really dont know the exact measure.
I would say approximately 1:1.5 ratio of coconut:jaggery to keep it sweet.
-Cardomom seeds ground into a powder
Procedure:
Kneed the wheat flour the same way as we do for chappati/puri. I usually put a tea spoon of oil while kneeding the dough to make it soft and non sticky.
In most blogs they melt the jaggery first and mix the grated coconut and let it cool for about an hour before rolling it into tiny balls to make the stuffing. I decided to deviate here due to the time constraint. I just broke the jaggery into smaller chunks and ground it into a fine powder in the mixie. In this I added the coconut and cardamom powder and mixed it well.
The next step is to roll out the dough into small balls the size needed to make mini puris. Spread the dough into a circle and place 1-2 Teaspoons of the jaggery mix over this. Fold the four sides of circle and bring the folded sides together to form a modak shape.
If all that sounded easy (like I felt too) the tricky part comes here. In a kadai, heat a little oil required to fry. Once the oil is hot, gently place the modak in. If the modaks are not well shaped or tightly closed while they fry they open up and the melting jaggery seeps into the hot oil. Make sure that the modak is closed tightly as sometimes the grated coconut that falls into hot oil tend to burst. Stay safe.
Once the modaks have a golden brown color around it is done and can be removed from oil.
With all modaks done and cooking complete I was on time for puja. After packing off hubby and Sid to school I sat down for some indulgence. I hope our Ganapthi liked them as much I did. :)
Usually in laws make the traditional rice kozhukattai, vada and payasam as the offering.But the festival was falling on a Monday morning which meant that Rajiv had to go to work on time, Sid had school and Gautham had to be fed in between. So all my cooking tasks + the offering had to be ready by atleast 7.30 am. Also the fact that I like to experiment and try out newer things :P. So I decided that I will try the North Indian style fried modak which is wheat based. Anything which has a jaggery inside works :)!
For any such day my management expertise has helped me. I knew I would not be able to cook rice, curry and a side dish + prasad before 7.30 am. So I planned my morning ahead and finalised the menu. It would be methi chappathis and lady's finger fry for lunch to keep things simple. That way I could really concentrate on the main item of the day- the Modak.
I googled and read a few recipe but decided to customise the procedure to fit into the time frame I had-2 hours. I woke up at 4.30 am (an hour earlier than my usual wake up time these days). To ensure that Gautham did not disturb me for the next 2 hours, the first thing I did was to feed him. After putting him back to sleep I was ready. Here is the recipe I followed.
Ingredients
-Wheat flour -4 cups ( I usedAshirvad atta)
-grated coconut- 1 full coconut
-Jaggery-1 big piece. I really dont know the exact measure.
I would say approximately 1:1.5 ratio of coconut:jaggery to keep it sweet.
-Cardomom seeds ground into a powder
Procedure:
Kneed the wheat flour the same way as we do for chappati/puri. I usually put a tea spoon of oil while kneeding the dough to make it soft and non sticky.
In most blogs they melt the jaggery first and mix the grated coconut and let it cool for about an hour before rolling it into tiny balls to make the stuffing. I decided to deviate here due to the time constraint. I just broke the jaggery into smaller chunks and ground it into a fine powder in the mixie. In this I added the coconut and cardamom powder and mixed it well.
The next step is to roll out the dough into small balls the size needed to make mini puris. Spread the dough into a circle and place 1-2 Teaspoons of the jaggery mix over this. Fold the four sides of circle and bring the folded sides together to form a modak shape.
If all that sounded easy (like I felt too) the tricky part comes here. In a kadai, heat a little oil required to fry. Once the oil is hot, gently place the modak in. If the modaks are not well shaped or tightly closed while they fry they open up and the melting jaggery seeps into the hot oil. Make sure that the modak is closed tightly as sometimes the grated coconut that falls into hot oil tend to burst. Stay safe.
Once the modaks have a golden brown color around it is done and can be removed from oil.
With all modaks done and cooking complete I was on time for puja. After packing off hubby and Sid to school I sat down for some indulgence. I hope our Ganapthi liked them as much I did. :)
