Diwali Special - Boondi Laddu

Diwali is the time when everyone in the house starts thinking about sweets. Boondi Laddu is one of the special sweets for Diwali. So, let's get right on to prepare laddus. The process is very simple and doesn't take much time.

Ingredients:

Besan or gram flour or chik pea flour - 2 cups

Sugar - 2 cups

powdered cardamom or elaichi - 1 tsp

cashews - 15

raisins - 15

water - 1/4 cup

oil for deep frying

baking soda - 1/2 tsp

Preparation:

Sugar Syrup:

First we have to prepare the sugar syrup. Put the water in the sugar and mix properly. Then keep it on the stove and boil until it reaches one string consistency. (it takes at the max 6-8 minutes if you exactly use the above mesurements. ) Switch off the stove.

Besan Batter:

First sieve the flour and mix water in it without any lumps. The batter should not be too watery or not thick. It should be just like a pancake batter or bajji batter consistency. Add 1/2 tsp baking powder into it and mix well.

Boondi preparation:

Put a frying pan, pour oil into it and heat it. Take a plate or ladle with holes in it. Pour the besan batter into the holes of the ladle. Remove the boondi from the oil while it is still light yellow and put it in the sugar syrup. Do not let the boondi turn crispy. Soak all the boondi in the syrup for 45 minutes to one hr. Put the elaichi powder in the boondi mixture. Put the raisins and cashews. Then start making balls with the soaked boondi by squeezing them hard.

See, it's not that hard. For me it just took one hr to make 20 laddus of medium size with the above measurements. The did turn out really good as you can see from my picture :-)

Guavar Beans Patoli

This is one of my favorite dishes that my mother used to make. She used to make this specifically with Guavar beans, but after coming to US, I noticed that we don't get those very often here. This will taste good with normal beans or capsicum also.

Here's the recipe:

Guavar beans - 1/2 lb

For the patoli mixture:

gramdal(senagapappu) - 1/2 cup

dry red chilli - 10-12 (Please reduce the count if you are not a spicy person like me)

Jeera (cumin) - 1 tsp

For Tadaka (popu or tiragamata):

Urad dal (Minappappu) - 1tsp

Mustard seeds (Aavalu) - 1 tsp

Jeera - 1/2 tsp

oil - 2 tsp

curry leaves - 5-6

Preparation:

First boil beans with a pinch of salt or pressure cook them. Next, put the patoli ingredients in a blender and blend it to a coarse paste.

Next put a frying pan (make sure it's wide enough to saute the mixture properly), put oil and the tadka ingredients. When the seeds start to splutter, add the beans first and fry for a minute and then add the patoli mixture. Keep frying for a few minutes until the mixture turns to a crispy golden brown texture. Switch off the flame and mouth watering patoli is all yours !!

This tastes good when accompanied with rotis or with plain rice and rasam.