Yields 10 Modak
Prep time: 40 mints
Cooking time: 15 mints
Total time: 45 mints
Festival Sweets
Ingredients:
400 Gram Seedless Dates
100 Gram Almonds
100 Gram Cashew nuts
100 Gram Walnuts
100 Gram Raisins
100 Gram Dry coconut
30 Gram Poppy Seeds (Khus Khus)
1 tsp Ghee
Method:
- Chop all the nuts – cashew nuts, almonds and walnuts finely. Also chop the seedless dates and dry coconut pieces to fine pieces.
- Dry roast the chopped nuts one by one separately for 1-2 mints taking care that they would not get burnt, remove them and keep aside in a plate.
- Dry roast coconut pieces until they turn slight brown in colour and remove them aside too. In the same pan add poppy seeds and roast them slightly until they start popping, remove and keep aside.
- Heat ghee in the same pan and add chopped dates and raisins and fry continuously until it comes together and becomes like a thick mass. This takes 4-5 mints roughly. Do not leave it unattended as the raisins might get burnt. Switch off and let it cool slightly.
- Grind the roasted nuts with dry coconut pieces and poppy seeds to a coarse powder in pulse mode. I like the bite of dry fruits, so I do not powder them completely and hence keep them very course. It is your wish to grind them how you want. Remove the mixture aside into a plate.
- Now add the date-raisin mixture and pulse it in the mixer to get a coarse mixture. Again it is you wish here to grind it smoothly or keep it coarse like I did.
- Take out the mixture into the same pan and add coarsely ground nuts and mix nicely and bring it back on the flame and stir continuously for 2-3 mints until the mixture becomes slightly sticky and hold the dry fruit mixture nicely.
- Remove the mixture into a plate and let it cool slightly until you can handle with bare hands.
- Press the mixture slightly hard to form a sticky mass.
- Make gooseberry sized balls out of it and place them in a modak press in moulds it tightly by levelling the down and pressing it firmly to get modak shaped Ladoo. If you do not have modak press you can make into Ladoo.
Prepare all the modak (Ladoo) and store them in an air tight container.