See Kadubu

The preparation for Ganesha festival starts off a week in advance. I remember my mother soaking rice for the preparation of Kadubu dough a week previous to the festival. The main offering to Ganesha on the festival is this Kadubu (also known as modak). There are different kinds of modak, deep fried, steamed and just stuffed. The recipe given below is for the plain stuffed kadubu. For preparing the rice flour for this recipe, rice needs to be soaked for 3 hours, strained and then spread on a clean muslin cloth for drying. Dry this in shade for 1 whole day. Next day it is powdered very fine. My mother, aunt and me would sit and make kadubus with our hands without moulds, when the dough was still hot. Now that moulds are available and i'm the only hand to make kadubus, i use a mould. The kadubus should be made when the dough is hot.

SEE KADUBU:




Ingredients:

For the stuffing
1 cup fried Bengal gram powdered roughly (hurikadale)
1 cup white sesame (fried and roughly powdered)
1 cup jaggery powdered
1 cup dried coconut, grated.
1/4 cup poopy seeds (fried)
6-7 elaichi (seeds powdered)

For the dough:
2 cups rice powder
1 and 1/2 cup water ( adjust according to necessity)
a pinch of salt


Method of preparation:

1. Mix all the ingredients for the stuffing and keep it in an airtight container.
2. Boil water and add a pinch of salt, as the water starts boiling, add the rice flour till all the water is absorbed.
3. Keep mixing with a thick spatula (preferably wooden) to avoid lump formation.
4. As you keep mixing, bring the whole flour together into one huge dough.
5. Make lemon sized balls of the dough when it is still hot.
6. Pat this ball flat and put it into the kadubu mould and fill the stuffing powder into it and make hot hot kadubus.
7. You can further steam this kadubu or eat it without steaming.