Ukadiche Modak, a delicious sweet treat from India with coconut, palm sugar and cardamom. It's steamed in a rice flour dough until it's done. Traditionally it's eaten at the Ganesh festival in India.
It's time for our monthly cooking challenge of the Daring Kitchen and this time we were taken to India. The place to be was the Ganesha festival. And these Modak are offered to Lord Ganesha as a centuries-old tradition. Ganesha is the Lord of well being and good beginnings and during the 10 days of worship of this god is a clay figure of Ganesha is made and worshiped in the morning and evening. It is a time of many celebrations and festivals in India.
Recipes from around the world
This recipe is adapted from the blog Sizzleanddrizzle.com as a Daring Kitchen challenge. I think that's so great about the Daring Kitchen, where as I am introduced to traditions around the world. Of course I found it a challenge to make these Modak and I enjoyed eating them. They were fresh sweet and had a mild coconut flavor. I understand why they're here in India so fond of these modak.
- I wanted to follow the traditional recipe as far as possible, I steamed the modak. There are also recipes where they are deep-fried, and have a savory instead of a sweet filling.
- you want to have a sticky dough you use basmati rice. It is also possible to use a different species, when not available, but you will need to add extra water.
- The tradition indicates that you put a banana leaf in a steamer basket and steam modak on the leaf so I followed it. But you can also use a damp tea towel and steam the modak on top of that.
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Ukadiche Modak
Ingredients
Filling
- 200 gram coconut fresh
- 100 gram palm sugar chopped
- 3 tablespoons water
- ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
Covering/ shell
- 410 grams rice flour sifted
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 180 ml water
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 35 grams butter unsalted
Ingredients you need per step are listed below the step in Italic
Instructions
Filling: Modak
- Put the coconut, palm sugar and water in a saucepan and heat over low heat.
- The palm sugar melts and the inside is a bit moist, leave the pan on low heat for a few minutes until it is just dry.
- Mix the cardamom through.
- Spread on a plate and let it cool.
Dough
- Sieve the plain flour and rice flour with a small strainer.
- In a saucepan, combine the water, butter and salt and let it come slowly to a boil.
- When it boils, pour in the flour at once and stir with a wooden spatula until a ball is formed.
- Spoon 2 tablespoons of water in the pan, put a lid on the pot and steam for 1 minute.
- Remove from the heat and let it stand for 10 minutes.
- Grind finely in a food processor (about a minute).
- Knead carefully, so you get a smooth dough.
Steam Ukadiche Modak
- Fill the pan for steaming with water and bring to a boil. Set the steam basket on top. Place in the steamer basket a banana leaf (or towel).
- Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces and roll each part up to a ball.
- Take each ball and flatten them with your hands (your hands should be a little wet) and create a round flat dough sheet of 10 cm diameter.
- Fill this sheet with 1 tablespoon Modak (in the middle, free the edges).
- Grasp the outside of the dough and push a piece of dough between your fingers toward each other, until you get all around
- Then grab the centre together and turn the dough until it is closed (push well to close it thoroughly with your fingers).
- Put in the steamer and steam 15 to 20 minutes.
- Eat them warm and spread with ghee just before serving.
Renata says
Hi Andrea, thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a lovely comment! Your modaks look so authentic sitting on those banana leaves! I can't believe I live in the land of bananas but did not have access to a single leaf (sigh...) It was a fun challenge!!
All the best,
Renata