Peanut Treats(chikki)

This dish was in my draft for a very long time. I thought it is the best time to post it since Ganesh Chaturthi is just 3 days away. These pictures were taken at my native by my brother when aayi prepared these.

When we were kids, my aayi would prepare these delicious treats in a big batch and we would munch on these for many days. The aroma that comes out of this when the peanuts are roasted, then mixed with sugar and cardamom is just amazing. Aayi would make these and spread on a board and then Pappa would cut them in neat pieces. They would give us the shapeless pieces from the sides – the diamond/square shaped ones were saved in air tight containers to be eaten later. My brother and I always loved to eat these when they were still warm, Yummm :).

Ingredients: 1 cup peanuts 1 cup sugar 3 tea spns ghee 1/2 tea spn cardamom powder

Method: Roast the peanuts on a medium flame. Remove the skin and make a coarse powder. Heat ghee , add sugar. Heat on a medium/low flame, mixing it continuously. When all sugar melts down, immediately add the peanut powder. Remove from heat and mix well. Grease a plate/cutting board with ghee , pour this mixture on top, roll into a big round. Cut them immediately.

Preparation time : 15mins

PS: The sugar should not be heated for long. Once it melts down, immediately the peanut powder should be added. Mixture should not be allowed to cool before spreading. If it cools a bit, it cannot be spread and once it reaches this point, you cannot bring it to normal again.

Updated: These can also be made with jaggery. When jaggery is used, do not use ghee , the whole process takes more time since jaggery needs to be heated till it has the right consistency. After heating the jaggery, put a drop of it in a bowl of water. If the drop sits like a solid drop in water, then you have the right consistency. Other steps are same as above. At my home, sugar version is more popular. When we want to make with jaggery, we use molasses(the black colored liquid jaggery), if the solid version that is available here is used, heat it with little water to avoid any burning.

I am sending this to Lakshmi’s Ganesh festival event

Wish you all a very happy Ganesh chaturthi .

Read about how Gauri tadige/Vayna pooja and Ganesh chaturthi is celebrated in Konkani homes(I am very specific to how it is celebrated at my home, every one has their own method of celebrating it, which is going on from generations). This festival is one of the very popular festivals of Hindu calendar year. From the day we came to US, we terribly miss all the festivities here. So I try to celebrate few of the important festivals in a small way here.

The Ganesha idols are kept in only few homes who are following the traditions for generations now. At my parents’ home, we don’t have this tradition, but we follow Vayna pooja . At my in-laws’ home, we bring home the Ganesha idol, but we don’t follow Vayna pooja .

The Ganesha festival would start with the loud speakers playing all Ganesha songs on these days. Every place we could see the festivities going on. The songs, the procession in which idol was brought home, the pooja bells, the fire crackers going on would make these days very special. We all kids would enjoy going to see the idols and always had a competition going on to see who saw more idols :).

Anyway, this year, I made a simple spread, where I picked up few very important dishes that are cooked at my in-laws’ place. I wanted to create a small festival environment at home. I picked these because for my husband, these dishes are a part of the festival. Then we did a small pooja , we played sukhakarta dukhaharta song in the background.

The above picture shows, rice(with the tulsi/holy basil leaves), mooga mole randayi , rice- chana dal paays , dali thoy , modak , nevri , idlis . Traditionally, khotte or hittu – idlis cooked in jackfruit leaves are served on this day. Along with these idlis, fresh scraped coconut mixed with asafoetida water, coconut oil, ginger, green chilies, salt is served. While eating, these tasty coconut scrapings are mixed with powdered idli and savored by dipping it in the mooga mole randayi .

I am sending this to Lakshmi’s Ganesh festival event .

Ingredients: 1 cup maida Salt Oil for deep frying

Stuffing: 3/4 cup coconut 1/2 cup jaggery 1/2 tea spn cardamom powder 1 tea spn sesame seeds( til )

Method: Heat 2 tbl spns of oil and add it to maida . Mix it very well till all the maida gets the oil. Add salt and water to make it a very stiff dough. Keep aside the dough for around 1/2 an hour. Roast the sesame seeds lightly. Heat jaggery and coconut together till jaggery melts and forms a uniform mixture with coconut. Mix sesame seeds. Remove from fire and add cardamom powder. Mix well. Take small balls of the dough, roll it into rounds (do not make the covering too thick). On the left side, keep the stuffing as shown.

Fold the right side, and press down the edges.

Heat oil and deep fry the nevris .

Sukhakarta dukhaharta song(Jai dev Jai dev)

• Gajamukhane and other songs (Kannada) – Real player format
• Ganesh chaturthi and other devotional songs – Windows media streaming

A website on Ganesh Chaturthi, related information and eCards