Growing up, our neighbors next door would start festivities for this festival days in advance. Being Maharastrians, they would decorate their home to welcome Ganeshji and make beautiful and colorful Ganesh idols. Their house would smell great with festival delicacies like mawa modak, coconut ladoos, and ukadiche modak. I thoroughly enjoyed the traditional ukadiche modak (pronouced as Ukadi – che meaning steamed) which is a yummy sweet dumpling made with rice flour and is stuffed with nuts and sugar. Beauty of ukadiche modak lies in its pleats and folds which requires lot of patience and practice to make.
Today’s recipe, Urad dal modak Recipe is my way of making modak which resembles the traditional one but is very different. Now onto the recipe! It’s a pretty straightforward recipe. Soak dal for 2- 3 hours and later grind it to a fine paste. Cook sooji and flour until light brown in color. Add mawa and cook mawa until it looses it’s white color and turns light brown. Do not over cook. When mawa is cooked, add the dal mixture and cook until brown in color. Roast dal on a medium flame and keep stirring continuously. These nutty modak gets its signature flavor from the roasted urad dal. Total cooking time will be between 30 – 35 minutes until you attain that beautiful brown color.
Once done add cardamom, nuts and sugar. Place some mixture in moulds and press hard to form a modak. Remove the excess and yummy modaks are ready. If looking for MAWA MODAK then follow this recipe here. After step 6, put some mixture in modak mould and shape them like modaks. While you are here try other recipes – Besan Ladoo, Paneer Burfi, Gujiya, Angoori Gulab Jamun, Mawa Burfi.
