Year's one of the big festival 'Ganesh Chaturthi' is here. The festival is widely popular across India and is celebrated with love and faith in Maharashtra.
The preparations begin on the day of Ganesh Chaturthi, on this auspicious day an idol of lord Ganesha is brought in home and is worshiped daily for 10 days.
People often keep Ganeshaji for auspicious number of days, be it 1, 3, 5, 7, 11 or 14. On the last day the idol is then celebrated immersed in water seeking prayers for his early arrival next year.
The day devotees offer ‘modak' considered Lord Ganesha's favorite prasaad.
Given below is a quick recipe to make delicious 'modak':
Modak is a form of sweet steamed dumplings.
It requires:
2 cup of rice flour
1 1/2 cup of jaggery (cut into pieces)
2 cup chopped coconut (for filling)
4 finely chopped cashew nut
3 finely cut kishmish
5-6 cloves of elaichi
1 tbsp of ghee
1/2 teaspoon salt-to-taste
Modak preparation:
Heat ghee in a kadhai and add jaggery and toss it until the entire jaggery is melted. Once the content turns brown, add cashew nuts, kishmish, and elaichi into it and keep it aside after slightly mashing it all up.
Now prepare 'pethi' or dough for the filling. Add 2 cups of water and 1 tbsp of ghee in a pan and bring it to boil. Now add rice flour and salt to taste. Now let it cool for sometime.
Once the batter has cooled down, knead the dough softly (add 1-2 tbsp of water in case the dough gets hard). Now make small dough balls and prepare small pethi's on your hands supported with thumb and index finger.
Now, pour some filling inside the pethi and make a dumpling. Prepare as many dumpling as your require.
Keep your dumplings for steaming and serve hot. You can also fry your dumplings!
