Besan Laddoo (बेसनाचे लाडू) -

Yeppeee! Its a festival time. Diwali is here and time to make wonderful sweets and

namkin. Now I am posting few Diwali goodies in advance.

 

Besan Laddoos - 

 

Ingredients –

Besan/chana dal flour (coarsely ground) – 4 bowls

Sooji (fine) – 1/4^th bowl

Powdered sugar – 2 bowls

Green cardamom powder  of 5-6 cardamom

Milk – ½ bowl

Pure ghee/clarified butter – 1 bowl

Golden resins and almonds and cashews for decoration

Procedure –

1. Take a heavy bottom pan. Heat ghee in pan. Add besan and fine sooji to it.

2. Roast flour on a low heat till it becomes golden brown in colour.

3. Turn off the heat and add milk and sauté for a while.

4. Take the roasted flour in a bowl and before it gets cool down completely add powdered sugar to it.

5. Add nutmeg and green cardamom powder and dry fruits you wish to add.

6. Knead it very well. Let it cool down while kneading.

7. Make laddoos out of dough and decorate with cashews or chopped pistachios or

silver foil.

Tip –

1. You have to roast the besan nicely, let it change the colour.

2.   Shape the ladoos when they are little warm, so that you will get soft laddoos.

3. Besan has to be coarsely ground. Otherwise laddoos can become little sticky. If you

don’t get coarsely ground besan then add little more sooji.

Basundi (Milk dessert) -

Vijaya Dashmi  (Dassera) is here and basundi-poori is favourite Maharashtrian feast on this occasion. So here is a traditional basundi recipe.

Ingredients –

Full fat milk – 1 litre

Sugar – as per taste

Charoli/Chironji – 1 tb-spoon

Cardamom powder – 1 t-spoon

Garnish –

Blanched and chopped pistachio.

Procedure –

1.   Take a non stick pan. Add milk into it and start boiling milk.

2.  Stir continuously. Don't let the milk stick to the bottom of the pan.

3. Stir till it becomes half of the quantity i.e. ½ litre.

4. Add charoli/chironji and sugar to the milk and boil for another 10 minutes till it becomes thick.

5. Turn off the heat and add cardamom powder.  Garnish with blanched and chopped pistachio.

6. Serve basundi hot with puri.

Note :

1.  You can add rose essence instead of cardamom powder and serve cold with garnishing of rose petals.

2.  You can add saffron along with cardamom powder.

However the recipe above is a very traditional version of 'basundi'.

Oatmeal Lace Cookies

 

Ingredients –

Quick Cooking Oats – 1 Cup

All purpose flour/Maida – 1/4^th Cup

Baking Powder – 1 ½ T-sp

Sugar – 1 Cup

Butter , salted (Softened) – 100 grams

Egg – 1

Vanilla extract – 1 t-spoon

Procedure –

1. Preheat oven at 160C and line a baking tray with baking paper.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together for 2 minutes or until it becomes white in colour.

3. Add egg, vanilla and beat well till blended.

4. Mix the flour, oats and baking powder together.

5. Add the flour mixture to the butter, sugar, egg, vanilla mixture and mix well.

6. Pour t-spoon of mixture on a baking sheet, 2” apart from each other.

7. Bake the cookies for 5 to 8 minutes or till edges are golden brown.

8. Peel carefully from the paper while its little hot, or before cool down completely.

Ginger burfi ( आल्याची वडी) –

This is a Maharashtrian winter special burfi.

Ingredients –

Small pieces of ginger – 1 bowl

Sugar – 3 bowls

Full fat milk/cream – 1 bowl or khoya 100 grams

Spoonful of milk

Ghee/clarified butter – 1 tb-spoon

Powdered sugar – 2 t-spoons

Cashew nuts powder – ½ bowl (optional)

Procedure –

1. Add chopped ginger and 1 spoon milk in a mixer grinder and grind ginger into a very fine paste.

2. Pour ginger paste, sugar, milk/cream/khoya, cashew nut powder (if you are adding) in a pan and start cooking the mixture. Stir occasionally. Let the mixture start boiling, then stir continuously and keep an eye on the mixture. When the mixture started leaving the pan add ghee/clarified butter and turn off the heat immediately. Transfer the pan from stove to the kitchen platform to avoid further cooking.

3. Add powdered sugar and stir continuously. Take one tray or cake pan, grease the pan with little ghee and pour the mixture into tray before it starts drying. Pat well and cut into small squares. Ginger burfi should be of small size than any other burfi.

Note :

1. Cashew nut powder reduces spicy taste or hotness of ginger making the bufi milder. But it is optional.

2. Ginger roots should be very fresh and juicy. Peel off the skin of ginger.

Carrot Halwa –

Ingredients -

Shredded carrot – 3 cups

Sugar – 2 and ½ cup

Khoya/mawa – 100 grams

Ghee/clarified butter – 2 tb-spoons

Green cardamom powder – 1 tb-spoon

Almonds/pistachio/golden resins for garnishing

Procedure –

1. Heat ghee in a pan. Add shredded carrot and sauté for 3-4 minutes.

2. Crumble khoya and add into the sautéed carrots. Mix well and sauté for 5 minutes, stir continuously.

3. Add sugar and sauté for another 5 minutes.

4. Add cardamom powder, mix well and turn off the heat.

5. Garnish with resins/pistachio or almond and serve at room temperature.

Note :

If you don’t have khoya, you can use condensed milk. Add condensed milk and keep on stirring until it loses all its moisture and become dry. If you use sweetened condensed milk adjust sugar accordingly.

Tilgul, tilgul wadi (sesame seeds and jaggery candy) –

Festival of ‘Sankranti’ is around the corner. I am posting this Sankranti special recipe :

Ingredients -

Til(sesame seeds) coursed powder – 2 bowls

(If possible use unpolished sesame seeds for this particular recipe. In Maharashtra seeds used for this recipe are called as ‘garvaraan til’ )

Jaggery (gul) – 2 bowls

Water – 2 tb-spoon

Roasted and powdered peanuts – 1 bowl

Ghee/clarified butter – 1 tb-spoon

Green cardamom -  5-6, peeled and powdered

Dry grated coconut – 2 tb-spoons or as required

Procedure –

1. Dry roast sesame seeds in a pan till they become light brown in color and grind them in a

mixer grinder. Take 2 bowls of sesame powder for this recipe.

2. Mix jaggery, 1 tb-spoon ghee and 2 tb- spoon water in a pan. Keep the pan on gas stove and turn on the heat.

3. When the jaggery starts melting and when you can see bubbles on the top, turn off the heat immediately. Add green cardamom powder.

4. Add sesame seeds powder and roasted peanuts powder and mix well.

5. Take a baking tray, or large plate and grease it with little ghee, pour the tilgul mixture, pat well and make a thick layer.

6. Pat dry grated coconut immediately on the top and let it cool down.

7. Cut the ‘wadis’ in small squares and keep in a air tight container.

8. These wadis will last at least for 15 days outside refrigerator.

Naraleebhaat (Sweet coconut rice) –

Ingredients –

 Rice – 2 bowls

(As far as possible use ‘Ambemohor’ rice)

Water – 4 bowls

Jaggery – 3 bowls

Cloves – 3-4

Green cardamom – 5-6 peeled and powdered

Ghee/clarified butter – 4 tb-spoon

Freshly grated coconut – 2 bowls

Procedure –

1. Wash the rice and keep aside for ½ an hour.

2. Heat 2 tb-spoon ghee in a thick bottom or non-stick pan.

3. Boil water in another pan.

4. Add cloves, let them splutter. Then add washed rice and sauté for a minute.

5. Add boiled water and cook the rice.

6. After the rice is done, transfer the rice from pan to the plate and let the rice cool down completely.

7.  Mix jaggery and coconut in a bowl.

7. Heat 1 Tb-spoon of ghee in a pan and add cooked rice and jaggery-coconut mixture to it. Mix well and cover the pan with lid. Let the rice cook on a medium flame for 10 minutes. Keep checking in between bottom of the pan.

8. Add green cardamom powder and 1 tb-spoon of ghee. Mix well.

9. Serve warm along with ghee on the top.

Note :

1. Generally in Maharashtra, this authentic recipe is cooked on ‘Narali Pournima’ festival.

2. If you want sweeter taste add ½ bowl of sugar after the rice is completely done but

still heat is on. Mix well and turn off the heat.

Moong Dal Halwa

Ingredients -

Moong dal/split green gram – 1 bowl

Ghee – ¾ bowl

Sugar – 2 bowls

Milk – 2 bowls

Mawa – 250 gms

Few Saffron strands

Cardamom powder to taste

Almonds and pistachio for garnishing

Procedure –

1.  Soak moong dal for 5 hours. Drain water from the dal after 5 hours and grind it in a mixer grinder. If are having any trouble while grinding add little water.

2. Heat ghee in a pan and add to it ground moong dal.

3. Roast the moong dal on a medium flame till it becomes golden brown in color. Keep stirring continuously.

4.  After the ghee started loosing moong dal, add milk and cover the pan with lid. Let the dal cook on a medium flame.

5. After the dal is completely cooked add mawa and roast for 5 minutes. Keep stirring.

6. Add sugar and roast again for 5 minutes or till the ghee start loosing. Moong dal halawa must get light brown color.

7. Add saffron and cardamom powder and mix well.

8. Garnish with almond and pistachio and serve hot.

Note :

Moong Dal halwa is a rajasthani delicacy. This halwa will be enough for 4 people.

If you don’t have mawa at hand, add 4 bowls of hot milk, instead of 2, little at a time and stir continuously.