Deepavali Treats # 1

Dear Foodies,

A VERY HAPPY DEEPAVALI TO ALL !!

I really really miss being at home for Deepavali, some how this festival shares a very special place in my heart. Its probably because of the goodies mom makes or the Lakshmi Puja at home or the new dresses that Daddy buys for all of us or the fire crackers or the festive look in the house and the neighbourhood or the non-stop Deepavali special shows on TV or its just ALL of them.

Every year we kids in our street would have a competition of who light's the first cracker for Deepavali. And so, my brother and I would be up at 4:00 am in the morning, not to get ready for an oil bath, not to help mom with the preps... but to get the first 100 wala lit on the road !!! And the excitement in the air would be really infectious, and one after the other for abt 30 mins everyone in the street would hear 100 wala's and 500 wala's going off instead of their boring alarms. And that would begin the wonderful day for us :) No matter how splendid the fireworks display in the US is, I would still prefer our small bijili pattasu, flower pots, sparklers, rocket bomb and Vishnu chakra any day !! When I was a kid, I would roam around the whole day with a gun filled with roll caps with a cowboy look and pride on my face :D And when all is over, in the night when we collect all the trash papers we would toss in a few roll caps and serpent tablets for that finishing touch :D The whole day was just AWESOME !!

Read the list of fireworks industries based in Sivakasi, one could call it the fireworks capital of India, here and its history here ( .pdf file).

Being in school, I havent found time to make anything for the Big Day. But well, there has to be a silver lining somewhere rite, its Deepavali !! And here it is, tomorrow, that is on the eve of Deepavali we have a concert by none other than the outstanding carnatic vocalist, Sudha Ragunathan rite here in the university, just 10 mins from where I am now :-) Its being organised by SABHA. Hats off to SABHA !! Well I bet all of you have heard Sudha Ragunathan, if you havent please do listen to her render a carnatic song and you will be enthralled for life :-)

Well back to the food part of this blog, every Deepavali my mother makes boondi laddu and kara mixture at home apart from other sweets & savouries. She makes them in huge quantities too and a major portion is for sharing with relatives and friends and neighbours. Deepavali is a traditional Indian 'Thanksgiving' thing.

This year though, my mother did not carry her usual enthusiasm as both my brother and I are here in the US. But well, God has His own way of getting things done :-). So my pedamma (Aunt) volunteered to make a bigger batch of treats to share with us for our naivedyam and my mom did a beautiful job at photographing every stage of the laddu making process. After looking at the pictures I felt me writing out the recipe would be redundant !! Have a look at them yourself.

All thanks to Vee for hosting the JFI-Diwali, its a wonderful idea and has lit up all our blogs. Its bringing in the festive look I was missing staying away from home :-) THANK YOU VEE

So here goes the recipe for the laddu our the family, my aunt making them, my mom photographing it, and me happily blogging about it :-) (The recipe for home-made mixture is in the previous post)

~ Boondi Laddu ~

This plate is on its way to Vee's JFI-Diwali

Ingredients:

• 1 cup - Besan

• 1 1/2 cup - Sugar

• 1 tbsp - Rice flour

• 5 nos - Cardamom/Elaichi, powdered

• 10 nos - Cloves/Lavang

• A pinch of saffron color

• Few kalakand pieces

• Water for sugar syrup

Procedure:

1. Prepare the sugar syrup, by adding required amount of water and boiling it till u get the one-string consistency(see second pic below for the 1-string test). Add some saffron color and reserve.
   
   
2. Make a batter with the besan by adding required amount of water to get a bajji batter like consistency i.e., the batter needs to be slightly runny.
3. Heat oil in a kadai and on a medium flame. Now pour a spoonful of the batter into the slotted spoon and rub the batter in to make it fall like tiny droplets into the oil. You can use either a rounded spoon/cup/your hand to do this. Be very careful though.
   

   
   
4. Fry the boondi on a medium flame. Dont wait till they get crisp, remove when 3/4th done and dunk them into the reserved sugar syrup.
5. When all the boondi is done toss in the lavang and kalkand pieces in too and make small laddu's of the mixture. This is easiest when the mixture is hot. If it has already cooled down you can re-heat till the sugar melts a little bit or you can use a little milk to moisten your hands while making the laddus. The use of milk will reduce the shelf life of the laddus though !
6. The next is to wait until the naivedyam is done to pounce on the laddus :-)