Wish you all a very happy Ganesh Chaturthi.
We had great festival celebrations at home today. We brought home a small Ganesha idol yesterday. We spent last two days shopping for pooja materials and getting everything ready.
V built a beautiful mantapa . I prepared a traditional spread as offering. We did the pooja to the best of our knowledge. For the most part, we followed this vidhi . We had a nice ceremonial pooja. Such a calm, peaceful and comforting celebrations. It felt like being at home in India.
I was thinking about what to post on this auspicious occasion. And I thought the panchakajjaya – mixture of 5 types of delicacies, would be the best. This is a common offering, also is known to be prasadam, prepared for different poojas. At our place, those who bring home Ganesha idol make this in big quantities to share with the people who come to see the idol. While growing up, we kids, loved to go to neighbors houses to see Ganesha and get the prasadam.
Aayi says, in olden days, dalia was prepared at home from the chana. But it is a very long procedure and since it is readily available in markets, everyone(that I know of) buy it from stores.
I updated Vayna pooja & patholi post with aayi’s pooja at our native. Check out.
Ingredients: 1 cup dalia (roasted chana dal/hurigadale/putani) 1 cup powdered sugar 2-3 tbl spns white sesame seeds 1 tbl spn ghee 2 tbl spn dry coconut (optional) 1/2 tea spn cardamom powder
Method: Grind dalia to a powder. Add sugar and mix well. Take them out in a bowl. Dry roast sesame seeds on a medium flame. Add the sesame seeds, dry coconut, ghee, cardamom powder and mix well.
We get two types of edible Amaranth – red ones called as ‘tambdi bhajji’ and green one(we call it white) called as dhavi(white) bhajji. Any greens are called bhajji in Konkani and stems are called as dento/dente. These greens are full of iron. Moreover all parts – stem and leaves of it are delicious especially when it is tender. We prepare sukke, saasam and raandayi using this bhajji dento. Both of these varieties are very popular here. The amaranth that we get here have thick stems unlike the ones that are commonly available in Bangalore. Any kind of green amaranth can be used for this dish.
Peel the thick stems and cut them into pieces. Thick roots can also be used after washing.
Ingredients: 3/4 cup black eyes beans(alsande) or dried peas(vatana) or green moong 2 cups amarath(bhajji dente) about 4 – 5 cms length pieces with leaves 1/4 cup baamboo shoot(keerlu) pieces (optional ) 7–8 jackfruit seeds(bikkand) crushed (optional ) 1 cup grated Coconut 5–6 red chillies 5–6 Teppal 2–3 Kokum pieces 1 tea spn Jaggery Salt
Method: Cook black eyed beans, amaranth pieces/leaves with bamboo shoot pieces and jackfruit seeds in cooker. Grind coconut with red chillies. Add the paste to the cooked mixture and heat. Add kokum pieces (or tamarind water),salt, jaggery and teppal crushed lightly.Cook for about 4 – 5 minutes. Serve as a side dish with rice or chapati.
Serves : 3-4 Preparation time : 30mins
