Today is Sankashta Hara Chaturthi and the icing on the cake is that its Angaraki too. Angaraki is when the Chaturthi comes on a Tuesday and is considered very auspicious. We fast the whole day, and the dinner is served only after moonrise. We prepare dishes to offer Lord Ganapati. One such dish is Modak and is His favourite :). There are various ways of preparing modak. I am going to be writing here one simple version of it.

Ingredients:

For the filling:
2½ cups grated coconut
2 cups Jaggery
3 cardomoms powdered
1 tsp ghee

For the dough:
3 cups flour(maida)
Salt to taste
Water
2 tsp oil

Oil for deep frying

Method:
Mix the coconut and jaggery in a kadhai. Place it on low flame. The jaggery will now begin to liquify. Keep stirring so that the mixture does not get burnt. Once the mixture comes to boil, add the cardomom powder. Keep stirring till the mixture leaves the sides of the vessel and is 75% solid. Note, you may feel that the mixture is not completely solid, but remember that once it cools down, it will tend to become tough.

Now, mix the maida, 2tsp oil, water and make a dough. The consistency of the dough should be the same as that of a chapati dough, neither too soft, nor too hard.

Once both the dough and the filling are ready, you are ready to go. It’s a custom to offer 21 modaks to the Lord. So make 21 parts of the dough as well as the filling. Make sure that the filling does not have coconut pieces with sharp edges, else modaks tend to open up in the oil.

Roll out each part of the dough into small rounds, size of puris. Place the filling in the center and pull the dough from all sides to cover it and make a modak. Do the same with the remaining dough and filling. You can keep the ready modaks covered in a damp cloth to prevent them from drying or developing hard edges.

Heat the oil for deep frying in a kadhai. Once the oil is hot(need not be smoking hot), lower the flame. Place 5-6 modaks in the kadhai and deep fry. Turn the modaks and fry tilll they turn golden brown.

The modaks are ready!! They can be stored in an air tight container for a week or so.

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