kadalai mittai ( peanut fudges)

Kadalai mittai or peanut fudges( or can be shaped into balls)  are traditional sweet made with jaggery. Loaded with nutrition they are good snack time bites too energise you. Alhough famous and easily available in supermarkets and small stores, the ones that would come from my perima's place were very tasty and famous. The pettaivaithalai kadalai mittai were shaped into fudges and decorated with colored dessicated coconut strands. Looked very appealing. This is one of my husband's favorite sweet and so almost every alternate week, we make this in my kitchen. A simple recipe

                          

Ingredients:

Peanuts - 1 cup

jaggery - 3/4 cup

a little rice powder( to shape them )

Method: 

Firstly dry roast the peanuts, cool them and crush them coarsely or till they break into two pieces with a rolling pin. Remove the hull from the nuts. 

Make a jaggery syrup in a thick bottomed pan till it melts  and rolls into a ball consistency. To this add the peanuts. When slightly cool ( yet warm). Dust your hands with rice flour, take a blob of the peanutjaggery mixture and shape them into balls. Alternatively, pour the mixture on a greased plate, pat them evenly and shape them into fudges.

Hayagriva maddi

This is a traditional sweet from the temple town of Udupi and is served in most functions of the "Madhwa" community in Karnataka. I first tasted this in my cousin's son's first birthday function. She is married to a Madhwa and so this sweet dish was served along with another traditional sweet Chandrahaara. But this sweet has a very lovely story behind why it is served in the traditional Mutt of Sri Krishna temple at Udupi.

According to the legend, nothing grew on the land of a small village called matti some many years ago. The villagers lamented this to the wandering Saint Vadiraja theerhta. He gave them a bundle of seeds to grow and the people in turn showed their gratitude by offering channa daal and Jaggery. These, it is believed were eaten by lord Krishna who took the form of hayagreeva or horse. From then on hayagreeva maddis is the preffered prasadam in the Udupi temple. The seeds that vadiraja theertha gifted is the famous gulla brinjals, a pale green variety unique to this region which is produced even today and is available in other towns and cities of Karnataka in Mangalore stores .

Now after the story, over to the recipe of  Hayagreeva maddi.

Ingredients-

• Channa dal --- 1 cup
•  Jaggery    ----- 3/4 cup ( i used powdered palm jaggery) 
• Dry coconut---- 2 table spoons
•  Roasted poppy seeds ( gasgase) - 1 table spoon
• dash of cardamom powder to flavour
•  Dry grapes and Cashew for garnishing
• Ghee

Method -

Cook the channa dal in  a cooker to 3 whistles or till it boils to a mushy consistency.

On the other side ....make a jaggery syrup  by adding little water to the jaggery. Filter the jaggery mixture to remove impurities.

Now, take the filtered jaggery mixture and heat it in a kadai, to this add the mushy paste of Channa dal and cook till it blends.

Simmer the  stove  for a minute and mix in the , elaichi powder and dry copra and mix well with 3 table spoons of ghee .

Switch off the stove and sprinkle roasted poppy seeds all over. 

Grease a bowl and scoop the maddi to a bowl and  garnish with roasted cashews,  and fried raisins . 

You can add more ghee to make it taste better. 

payattham paruppu payasam

Moong dal porridge(payasam). This is a traditional payasam made for all auspicious ocassions. It is also good for mouth ulcers.

Ingredients:

moong dal : - 1/2 cup

channa dal - 2 table spoon

jaggery ----- 3/4 cup

cardomam -- 2 nos

cashew nuts - 10 nos

small slivers of coconut or gratings

Milk - 1 cup

Method:

Pressure cook moongdal and channa dal in 1 1/2 cups of water.

Mash them well and boil them in a dish.

Add jaggery and slivers of coconut or gratings and boil them till the jaggery dissolves

Add milk when the mixture bubbles and switch off.

Garnish with fried cashews and cardomam

Adhirasam

A fried sweet patty made with processed rice flour and jaggery syrup.

Ingredients:

Processed rice flour ------- 1 cup (see the procedure to make the processed rice flour at the bottom of this post)
Jaggery --------------------3/4 cup
Elaichi powder a pinch (optional)
quantity of water enough to immerse the jaggery.
cooking medium to fry

Though the ingredients looks simple the process of making rice flour is slightly laborious and the jaggery syrup should be to the right consistency.

Method:

First boil jaggery with little water in a thick bottomed pan on a mild flame. When it dissolves, filter the syrup to remove the impurities. Now boil the mixture till you obtain a mild syrupy consistency. To check the consistency, add a pinch of syrup into cold water. When removed from water the syrup should roll like a ball.(the syrup should not dissolve in water)

Now add this jaggery syrup into processed rice flour and mix them to make a dough .

Smear oil on you palm and take a blob of dough and pat into small circles and deep fry them in preheated oil.



Just flip them and remove immediately, if you want it softer and light brown in color.(I like it softer)

To make crisper and brown adhirasam, pat them thinly and deep fry till they turn brown.






Tip: The rice and jaggery dough can be stored outside and can be patted and fried the next day also. This has a shelf life of 10-15 days.(the dough requires no refridgeration)

Method to make processed rice flour:

This is the base flour for making traditional tamil sweet called adhirasam.

Raw rice is washed well and the excess water is drained through a colander. After a resting time of 30 minutes, the wet rice is spread on a clean cloth like dhoti and dried under shade. After an hour when the rice is lightly moist, It is ground finely in a mixer. This slightly moist rice flour is then used according to the required measure.