Modaks - Sweet and Savory

When you are a sweetaholic and you can’t eat dairy, life becomes bleaker than you’d ever known. There’s only a certain amount of bananas, dates and sweetened granola you can eat before you give in and gobble down your first soya tart and your palate is ruined forever. Even after brushing your teeth until you have no enamel left, finishing your year’s supply of Listerine and as last resort gurgling with neem juice, you’ll be unable to get rid of the greasy, putrid aftertaste. What shall you do then – sulk in a corner and contemplate whether the lone savior of your taste buds, a tiny piece of dark chocolate is worth the hives you’ll break into a hour after it valiantly fights off that nasty tang which has seized your mouth.

Yes my friend, that’s what I was doing when suddenly my usually underperforming memory stepped it up and images of Modaks flashed across my eyes. I had tasted them years back when Smitha aunty, my parents’ Maharashtrian neighbor had sent them after Ganesh Chaturthi. I couldn’t remember much except that they tasted of coconut. Some googling later I finally found my diary free sugar fix – coconut and jaggery dumplings at Aayi’s.

However, there was a tiny problem – there was no jaggery at home and I wasn’t sure of my dumpling cover rolling skills. Genius overtook; sugar substituted gur and the packet of dumpling skins came out of the refrigerator. I didn’t want to fry them so I steamed the dumplings like some internet recipes had suggested. Of course in my euphoria, I had forgotten the salt and spices in the processed dumpling skins but that only made the Modaks more interesting – an explosion of savory and sweet in the mouth. After polishing off a plate of these sinful dumplings, I had a preposterous desire to hug the Thackerays and shout “Jai Maharashtra!” I am also sending these sweet and savory Modaks to One Hot Stove.

Modaks – Sweet and Savory

Ingredients:

Filling:

Grated coconut – 3/4 cup

Sugar – 1/3 cup

Sesame seeds – 1 tsp, toasted and roughly crushed

Rice flour – 1tbsp

Raisins – 1/3 cup

Cashew nuts – 1/3 cup coarsely crushed

Cardamom powder – 1tsp

Rose water – 1/2 tsp

Dumpling skin - 20

Water

Method:

• Mix grated coconut and sugar in a microwave safe bowl and heat covered for 3 minutes on high or until the sugar melts and forms a homogenous mixture with coconut.
• Add the other ingredients for filling and mix well. Let the mixture cool to room temperature.
• Prepare your steamer. Since I don’t have a steamer I had to make one by placing a lightly greased sieve over a large pot filled to 1/8 capacity with water. While the water comes to a rolling boil fill the dumplings.
• Place a dumpling skin flat on a clean surface and wet all around the edge.
• Place 1 heaped tbsp of the filling in the centre and gather the edges to completely cover the filling. Seal the dumpling with a light twist.
• Repeat for other dumplings.
• Dip the dumplings in water and place on the greased sieve after water in the pot comes to a rolling boil. Cover the pot and let the dumplings steam on medium heat for 15 minutes. Remove the lid carefully avoiding steam burn and check for doneness. The dumpling skin should be glistening and translucent.
• If done remove pot from heat.
• Gently remove the modaks from the sieve and allow them cool to room temperature before serving.

Serves – 4

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Rava Badam Laddoos

It's sacrilegious for a Bengali to confess that she likes another sweetmeat more than rasogola, pantua and the likes but I do. I used to stay in a primarily Kannadiga hostel during my first year in Bangalore. Of course, the cook there tried her best to put me off Kanada food for life and she did quite well till Diwali. Most of the in-state girls went home for the festival and came back with jars and steel dabbas of home made sweetmeats and desserts to share with friends in the true Diwali spirit. Note I say most!

A couple of days, after Diwali my neighbor who had been visiting her parents in north Karnataka knocked my door hard uncharacteristically early in the morning. Groggy, concerned and angry all at the same time, I opened the door only to have something shoved into my mouth. Jaggery, coconut, dal and ghee exploded in my mouth. Voila, so happened my quick induction to the legion of Kannada sweet lovers!

If you haven't guessed yet, she had fed me a piece of obbattu. Over the years, I have relished much green payasa, huggi ,Dharwad pedas and kajayas.

Couple of Diwalis back, stuck in rural Indiana, I was craving for Kannada sweets. Well aware of my shortcomings and in the absence of recipes, I went about recreating from my remembrance of taste, Rava Laddoos and Besan Burfi. Why I picked them? I figured they would be the easiest and I wasn't wrong! They turned out exactly like a friend's mother and the batch of 20 was soon finished by N and I. However, me being me, was not satisfied with just recreating; I had to add my own. So the next time I made Rava Badam Laddoos and Besan Pista Burfis which have since been established as N and my Diwali tradition.

Rava Badam Laddoos

Ingredients:

1 cup fine wheat sooji/rava

3/4 cup fine sugar or 1 cup crystal sugar

3 cloves

3 tsp raisins

1/2 tsp cardamom powder

3/4 cup water

2 tbsp ghee for frying + 1/2 cup for badam coat

Few strands of saffron (optional)

1/2 cup almond slivers

Method:

For Laddoo -

• Slightly crush cloves.
• Heat ghee in a heavy bottom pan and add cloves and raisins. Fry for 20 seconds or till the cloves and raisins don't puff. Take care not to burn them.
• Add sooji and keep frying over medium heat. Cook till sooji turns red and emits a delicious aroma. Transfer the fried sooji onto a dish.
• In another pan heat water,sugar and saffron(if using) to a rolling boil.Remove from heat.
• Mix sooji and cardamom powder into the sugar syrup. The mixture will be very watery at this stage. Cover and let stand for 30 minutes. The sooji should have absorbed the syrup by then and reached a dry halwa like consistency.
• Apply some ghee on your palms and make balls out of the mixture.

For Badam Coat-

• Dry roast the almond slivers and coarse grind them to crumbs.
• Add the almond crumbs to 1/2 cup of ghee and mix well into a slightly runny paste.
• Dip the laddoos in the paste and allow them to cool on a dish. The ladoos should have a thin layer of badam paste. Wipe off excess paste.
• Once cooled, store in air tight jars. They stay good for a fortnight that is if they last that long.

Makes 16-18 laddoos.

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Pumpkin Pie

Baba always cringes when I say Holi is my favorite festival. First I have the gall to pick Holi over Durga poojo and then I don't even give into small mercies by calling the festival of colors Dol, like Bengalis aught to. A daughter completely lost to the cow belt. I wonder what he'll say on knowing that even Holi is gradually losing out to Halloween, in all its gory and sweetness. Slightly transgressing, but I think I was Irish in a previous birth. My third favorite festival is St. Patrick's Day. Do I really need to explain why?

I am sure if I lived in a Halloween celebrating country as a kid, it'd be undoubtedly my favorite festival. No Santa or Krishna can beat dressing up, messing mom's kitchen in the name of pumpkin carving and stuffing one's face with candies and chocolates!

Though not a holiday itself, Halloween also marks the beginning of the holiday season, okay at least for me. The winter coats and gloves come out as do the tins of cocoa and my various baking sheets and pans. It may sound strange to many but I hardly use the oven in summer, may be a couple of times to broil some tandoori chicken but no cookies, cakes or muffins are made in my kitchen when it's hundred outside.

Every Halloween, I bake pumpkin pie to declare loud and clear the opening of the baking season in the Suman-Ray household. Bless the smell of hot butter, cinnamon and smoked paprika (yes!) that infuses every fiber of our house and thereby inspires its residents to giddy levels of food lust. We like our pumpkin pie filled with the warm spices of fall, topped with a generous dollop of whipped cream. For Halloween, I also top it with some peanut butter haystacks, to add some spookiness to an otherwise bliss-inducing humble pie.

Since I warm up my baking skills every fall with this pie, I use every culinary shortcut possible while making one. In simpler words, I use ready made Graham's cracker crust and canned mashed pumpkins. I can hear the tongues going tsk tsk. I promise I'll show you how to make a pie crust before Thanksgiving. To be honest, one fall crunched for time, I gave into sloth and used canned pumpkin pie mix. Lesson learnt in consequence: sloth is evil even when I am dressed as the Devil herself!

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

Cream cheese, softened - 8 ounce

Canned mashed pumpkin - 1 can

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Salt - 1/4 tsp

Eggs - For filling :1 plus 2 yolks, for crust : 1

Half-and-half- 1 cup

Butter, softened - 1/4 cup

Vanilla extract - 1 tsp

Ground cinnamon - 1 tsp

Ginger powder - 1/2 tsp

Ground nutmeg - 1/2 tsp

Ground cloves - 1/4 tsp

Chili flakes - 1 tsp

9" pie crust - 1 ( I use Graham's, you may use your favorite)

Whipped cream for topping

Method:

Prepping the crust:

• Heat the oven to 350F.
• Lightly beat an egg with a tablespoon of cold water and brush the sides and bottom of the crust with the egg wash.
• Bake the crust in the oven for 3 minutes until the egg wash is dry. (Graham's pre-baked crust comes with instructions for baking the crust with egg wash for 5 minutes but I have noticed that browns the crust a bit too much.)
• Cool on a wire rack.

Preparing the filling:

• In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese with a spoon or hand mixer for 2 minutes.
• Add the pumpkin and beat until combined.
• Add the sugar and salt, and beat until combined.
• Slightly beat the egg and yolks together and add to the pumpkin mix with half-and-half, softened butter. Beat until combined.
• Finally, add vanilla and all the spices. Beat until all the ingredients are well mixed.
• Be careful not to over beat. The filling shouldn't be fluffy like cake batter. If there's more air the pie will rise like a cake and then collapse, living you with what N calls a crater pie (a pit in the center). Also pay special attention to use a dry bowl and dry mixing spoon, excess moisture will cause the filling to leave the sides of the crust.

Baking:

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Pour the filling into the cooled pie crust and start baking.
• After the first 30 minutes, take the pie out of the oven and cover the crust with another layer of aluminium foil to prevent the crust from burning. Be careful not to touch the filling along the rim with the foil as it may cause the filling to leave the sides of the crust.
• Return pie to oven and bake for another 20 minutes or until the sides are set but the center is still just a little jiggly.
• Switch off the oven and leave the pie in it for another 10mins.
• Take the pie out and place on a wire rack and cool to room temperature.
• Cut into slices and top each piece with a generous amount of whipped cream.

Serves - 8

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