Boondi laddu

Hope every one had a safe and happy diwali.  We went to temple and they gave sparkles to all kids (both my elder and yonger got them). My elder son had so much fun with them, while my younger son is hesitent to touch them, my eldest took the pleasure of having all the sparkles. I made rangoli with color sand and decorated my house with lighting and enjoyed food with family and friends.  so, altogether we had a memorable day..

I made my all time favorite sweet Boondi laddoo. I remember my early days in US, when I used to crave for this laddo and I cannot find it anywhere. One fine day, my friend and I started to collect the recipe by calling so many friends and  relatives and all we hear is, no… we don’t know!! and ‘ohh..my..it is tough to make’..kind of words. Anyway, we got this recipe from my friend relative and from then we been doing it. Don’t be skeptic, all it needs is another person you can chit chat with, I called my neighbor to chit chat with me while doing this.

Ingredients-

• 3 cups Besan (Senagapindi / Gram flour)
• 3 cups sugar
• 4 cups water
• 1 tbsp cardamom
• 20 cashew nuts
• 15- 20 raisins
• Pinch of  edible camphor
• 2 tbsp Ghee (clarified butter)
• oil for deep frying

Boondi laddu

Directions-

1. Take besan (senagapindi) flour and add 2 cups of water to it. Make a thick paste (this will prevent lumps) to this thick paste, add 2 cups of water to make it to a dosa batter consistency
2. Another quick check is, pour 1 tbsp of batter onto the boondi ladle, the batter should drip immediately with out much effort.
3. Heat a heavy bottom vessel and prepare sugar syrup by adding 1 cup of water to 3 cups of sugar.
4. Let the sugar melt on low heat (since we are working with 3 cups of flour, by the time all the flour is done, our syrup will be ready. If you are working with less amount of flour, you can make this syrup ahead)
   Heat oil In a deep bottom pan. The oil should be hot enough. When you drop a small drop of batter in the oil, it should immediately bubble up. Note-The oil temperature is also an important aspect to make perfect boondi. If the temperature of the oil reduces the boondi will stick together. The boond’is should cook and come up separately.
5. Take the boondi ladle(perforated ladle) and pour a ladle of batter and make boondi. Fry them for ½ min and take them into a bowl. To see if the boondi is perfectly cooked for laddus, press one in between your finger. It should get squeezed in, instead of cracking and breaking into pieces.
6. Following the above step, make boondi with all the batter.
7. The consistency of syrup is the key point (this is the reason why many are reluctant to try this sweet), here are few ways you can identify the right consistency-

• Take a small bowl with 2 tbsp water. Add 3 drops of sugar syrup into the bowl of water, the sugar syrup should come together to form a soft ball.
• Take a wooden spoon and dip into sugar syrup (just dip it, to coat the spoon), raise the spoon to your eye level and pour the syrup, the last drop of the syrup should form a single string when dripping down.
• Take a wooden spoon and dip into sugar syrup (just dip it, to coat the spoon), carefully take the syrup between your thumb and index finger. Now, stretch it little and see if you can get a single string.

1. When the syrup is ready, add crushed cardamom powder and edible camphor ( nice aroma spreads all over your house). Cover the syrup with a lid so that it does not crystallize.
2. Heat ghee in a small pan and fry cashew nuts and raisins till golden brown.
3. Add boondi, cashews and raisins to the sugar syrup and mix them thoroughly. Let it cool little bit so that we can handle ( it should be atleast little warm, if it is too cold, it’s hard to make laddus).
4. Take handful of boondi’s and with our other hand press it hard. Now, make real tight fist so that the boondis can hold together. It surely needs practice don’t hesitate, do it and you’ll get it.

Enjoy these traditional home made boondi laddos.

Boondi laddu

Rava Laddu

Diwali reminds of crackers and sweets.  I remeber the days when i would go shopping with my dad to buy crackers for me and my brother. I count my sparkles 10 times or more to make sure, my brother has not taken them.  I love to go shopping with my dad, he used to talk about his work and he is extremely hilarious, i really miss those days.  When i go to India, i urge my dad to take me shopping with him.

Here is a sweet recipe for all my viewers.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup fine Semolina aka  soojji (Bombai Rawa)
• 1 cup fine Sugar (if you have fine sugar like in US, don’t need to grind it. Other wise grind it)
• 1 cup Grated Fresh Coconut (frozen fresh shredded coconut also works good as long as it is thawed to room temp)
• 5 Cardamoms (open the pod and powder the seeds)
• small piece of Edible Camphor or Pachha Karpuram powdered (Optional)
• few Raisins
• few Cashew Nuts
• Ghee – 1tsp
• Milk For Binding Laddoos (I used ¼ cup)

Rava laddu ingredients (semolina / sooji, fresh shredded coconut, sugar, cardomom)

Ravva Laddoo

Directions-

1. Heat 1 tbsp of ghee in a pan and fry semolina on low flame with constant stirring or sauteing until you smell nice aroma from ravva. Take this into a wide dish.
2. Fry the grated coconut in the pan till dry.
3. In a wide dish, add fried semolina, fried grated coconut, sugar and mix them well.
4. Add powdered cardamom and camphor (optional) to the above mixture.
5. Heat 1 tsp of ghee in a pan and fry raisins, when fried they puff up, Take care not to over fry which would spoil the taste. Remove the raisins and fry cashew nut pieces in the same ghee till golden brown.
6. Add the fried raisins and cashew nut pieces to the semolina mixture and mix well.
7. Add small quantity of milk to the mixture and mix (1 tbsp of milk at a time).
8. Take a fistful of the wet mixture and make laddoos. Add milk in small quantities only as and when required. Note- If you add the milk all at once, the mixture would become soggy and you can’t make laddoos. Go little at a time.
9. Arrange laddoos in a plate side by side to dry and enjoy these mouth watering laddoos.

Ravva Laddoo

Paramannam

Happy Dussera to all my viewers!!!!

According to Hindu tradition & spiritual customs Annam Payasam or Paramannam is a sweet dish which is prepared as an offering to God in almost every home in Andhra on most special occasions and festivals.

My mom cooks this paramannam every Saturday as nayvedyam to venkateswara swamy.

This is a traditional sweet, where the rice is cooked in milk and water and sweetened with jaggery and subtly flavored with cardamom.

Ingredients-

• 1 cup rice (Sona Masoori / Jasmine / any Long grain)
• 2 cups milk + 1 cups water
• 2 cups jaggery + 1/2 cup water
• ½ cup each – cashews and golden raisins
• ¼ cup – ghee
• 4 cardamom pods powdered

Directions-

1. In a pressure cooker, cook rice in milk and water to very tender for 4 whistles. (back home, usually, they cook in a milk and water in a big clay pot and will let the milk boil and overflow a little out of the pot which is considered as good and to this they add washed rice, I am cutting all this extra steps and making it a easy way)
2. In an another pot, melt jaggery in water and simmer to plain syrup stage.
3. Add cooked rice to jaggery syrup. Mix and cook on medium-low heat.
4. Meanwhile, in a small skillet, heat ghee on medium heat. First fry cashews and then golden raisins to light gold color. Add the whole thing – ghee along with fried cashews and golden raisins to the rice-jaggery mixture.
5. Simmer on medium-low heat stirring in-between, until the rice comes together ( when cooled, it becomes more hard)
6. Just before turning off the heat, stir in cardamom powder and mix thoroughly. Serve warm or cold.

Sweet Pongal

Kobbari Lousu

Sweet Coconut balls called as ‘KOBBARI LOUSU / KOBBARI UNDALU’ is one of the several Andhra traditional home sweets. These laddoos are very soft and delicious. This sweet is very easy to put together  with few ingredients and  makes a very delicious dessert (which I should have after every meal).

I do this sweet during festive days as I have some left over fresh coconuts .

Grated Fresh Coconut

Ingredients-

• 1 cup of fresh grated Coconut (Can be substituted with defrosted frozen grated coconut)
• 1 cup of grated Jaggery (You can always adjust the sweetness as per your taste)
• 1/2  tsp cardamom (Elachi) powder

Directions-

1. Add grated coconut and jaggery into a heavy bottom vessel on medium heat.
2. In few minutes jaggery will start melting, let coconut cook well in the jaggery syrup. Stir continuously.
3. Add  cardamom powder and cook until the mixture comes close/thick (mixture will start to stick to the stirring spoon and leave the sides of the cooking dish)
4. let the mixture cool to a temperature that your hand can tolerate.
5. Grease your palms with ghee and roll the mixture into lemon sized balls.

Kobbari Undallu

Sunnundallu

This is another traditional Andhra sweet. Roasted urad dal is ground with sugar into sand like powder, mixed with pure ghee, and the mixture is shaped into round balls. This sweet is much beloved because of its unique taste and nutritional value. These are often prepared for special occasions like baby showers (srimantham), etc.

I made this as an evening snack to my kids. Instead of giving them processed snacks, I would prefer to make nutritional snacks that are easy to make.

When ever i find little time, I dry roast urad dal, make this Sunnundalu powder and store it in the freezer (not more than 6 months) so that I can make this sweet any time of the day. Back home we say, giving 1 ball of this sweet to kids, gives them good amount of protein needed for a day.

Ingredients-

• 2 cups Split urdd dal
• 1 ½ cup sugar
• 3 cardamom (elachi)
• 1 cup Ghee

Sunnunda powder

Directions-

1. Dry roast the urad dal till nice aroma comes out, Let it cool.
2. Grind it to fine sand like texture and keep aside.
3. Powder the sugar and cardamom.
4. Mix all these powders and make laddus adding sufficient ghee.

Sunnundallu

Almond Mysorepak

Sweets….Umm…I’m always ready for them. I have a sweet tooth and I am ever ready to indulge in one. I went to my friends daughter b’day party and after a good dinner, I am looking for sweet, without dessert my dinner is not complete. As I am looking for one, my friend pointed out to a dessert and started to say something about it, before she completed, I went and got 2 of those sweets and with the first bite, I was floating in the air, I had to take another bite, and then I was trying to find my friend who is the host. I finally found her, I took her aside and asked her about this sweet, she said it was 7 cups and her MIL was famous in it. I said i vote her too, it was  so excellent.
As usual I asked her the recipe and she told it is made with Almonds, I am more curious now and I wrote down the recipe.
Such a nice sweet with almonds, this would be the best sweet I would imagine for any sweet lovers. Easy to make, versatile and tastes heavenly. This is for ‘under 30 min’  challenge  mad tea party is hosting for express indian cooking.
This tastes almost like mysore pak, but more delicate and creamy with almonds and milk. A must to do sweet.
This is such an easy recipe, it does not need any checking of sugar consistency or what so ever. Rule of thumb is keep stirring and the sweet is ready when the mixture starts to leave the sides of the pan.

Follow the recipe as it is, do not tempt to cut down any of the ingredients (except sugar which can vary according to taste) this will affect the taste.

Ingredients-
• 1 Cup Almond Powder (Grind raw almonds)
• 1 Cup Besan (Senaga pindi) / Gram Flour
• 3 Cups Sugar
• 1 Cup Milk
• 1 Cup Ghee

Directions-

1. Take a heavy bottom wide pan and mix all the above ingredients.
2. On a medium heat, keep stirring to prevent from burning.
3. Stir the mix till the whole mix starts to leave the side of the pan.
4. Pour this mix into a greased pan.
5. Let it cool for 2 min’s and cut them into desired shapes.

This is a very healthy dish when eaten limited.
TIP-

To get a soft piece of this sweet, take the mixture out when you see the sweet leaving the sides of the pan.

Almond Mysorepak / 7 cups sweet