Ganesh Chathurthi

This Ganesh Chaturthi, I celebrated with some home-made rava modak. I love the original steamed kozhukattais made with rice flour, but I have seen my mom make it and have seen the amount of stirring that goes into it. So I chickened out- and instead made these fried rava modaks filled with jaggery- coconut filling. The recipe comes from my mom,

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups Sooji/Rava
2-3 tbsp ghee
Warm milk for kneading

Mix the ghee in the rava. Add milk little by little- knead it till it forms a dough (like for chappatis). Let it rest for about 2hrs.

For the filling,
1 cup Jaggery (depends on how sweet you want the filling to be)
1 cup coconut (the amount should be so much as to absorb all the liquid)
small amount of பச்சை கற்பூரம் (green camphor is what that means but it is camphor that is edible)
2-3 pods of elaichi/cardamom pods, crushed

Melt the jaggery in a pan on medium heat, mix in the camphor and elaichi. Stir in the coconut. Heat it until all the liquid is absorbed with occasional stirring.

Now that you have the filling ready, roll the rava dough into small circles. Fill it with the jaggery-coconut mixture. Fry it until it is golden brown (I used olive oil and canola oil mixture).

The memories of throwing a clay Ganesha idol into our well is still fresh in our mind. My dad made us go around the house with it and then we would dump it in the water, where it came from. Too bad these days they make the idols out of that plaster thing, they might look awesome but they are not good for the environment.