India is the land of festivals. There are a lot of celebrations that go around in the entire country simultaneously and every region has their own way of eating, cooking and he's going about the festivities. This is the time when various parts of India are either celebrating Makar Sankranti or Pongal or Lohri. And does not matter what part of the country you belong to this is the time to eat and celebrate with your entire family.
The most interesting part is the fact that all of these festivals are harvest festivals and are centred around the importance of food in our lives. So, like every other event in India, good food is one of the most important parts of celebrating the festivals. There are a lot of dishes that are made and eaten during this time like khichdi, tilkut, pithe and sarson ka saag, depending upon what region of the country do you belong to. And if you want to bring some diversity to your own table this time, then we have two perfect recipes from renowned chefs.
Kadalai Paruppu Payasam (Chana Dal Payasam)
Recipe By Rohan Malwankar, Executive Chef, Courtyard By Marriott Bengaluru Hebbal
Ingredients:
- ½ cup chana dal
- ½ cup thin coconut milk
- ¾ cup jaggery powder
- 1 cup thick coconut milk
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil or ghee
- 12 to 15 cashews – whole
- 1 tablespoon raisins
- ½ teaspoon green cardamom powder or seeds of 4 to 5 green cardamoms
Method:
- Roast chana dal until it turns aromatic. Say just for a minute in medium flame. You can skip roasting too.
- Pressure cook for 5 whistles with water enough to immerse the dal.
- Meanwhile grind coconut with very little say 2 tablespoon hot water and squeeze out the milk and keep the milk aside.
- Once done, mash it roughly, when it is hot. Add water if needed.
- Continue heating the dal in a heavy bottomed pan and add powdered jaggery. (If you feel your jaggery is not pure, you can heat it with very little water and strain the syrup and use it).
- Boil in medium flame for 2 minutes. Add cardamom powder.
- Switch off the flame and add the coconut milk and mix.
- Heat ghee in a pan and fry broken cashew nuts, mix in to the payasam.
Gud Till Ke Laddu
Ingredients
- 80 gms White sesame seeds
- 130 gms cup Peanuts
- 80 gms cup Desiccated coconut
- 100 gms powdered Jaggery
- 3 tablespoon Water
- ¼ teaspoon Cardamom powder
- Oil – a bit for greasing the palms
Method
- Heat a pan on low flame and add 80gm sesame seeds to it.
- Roast the sesame seeds and stir continually for two three minutes.
- Add 130gms cup of peanuts to the same pan.
- Roast the peanuts on a low heat stirring often until they become crunchy and put in in a mortar pestle and crush them coarsely.
- In the same pan, add 80 gms desiccated coconut and roast until it becomes light golden.
- Add the roasted coconut, coarsely peanuts, cardamom powder in to the roasted sesame seeds and mix well. Set aside
- In same pan make jaggery syrup, on a low flame simmer this jaggery and water syrup.
- Switch off the heat and add the dry roasted mixture of sesame seeds, desiccated coconut, crushed peanuts and cardamom powder.
- Mix quickly and thoroughly the dry roasted mixture with the jaggery solution.
- When the mixture is still hot, begin to form and shape til laddu from it.
Both of these dishes are easy to make while being indicative of the joy of festivities. Do try to cook them and enjoy Makar Sankranti and Pongal.