Rave laddu or rava laddoo is one of my favorite sweets from my childhood. Aayi used to make these beautiful yellow colored laddoos with one kishmish (raisin) in each. I absolutely adored these. Though I always ran away when she made these (I was a very lazy kid), I promptly reached to taste them when they were done. Then there were some instances where I offered help and almost burnt my hands by putting them in hot laddoo mixture.
Aayi usually does not add saffron. She adds a pinch of yellow food color to get the bright yellow color to these. Her version is not too oily or too dry (which I observed in the laddoos made by others). Since I didn’t want to use the color, we used saffron. It gave a nice aroma.
Ingredients: 1 cup fine wheat sooji/rava 1 cup sugar 2-3 cloves Few strands saffron(optional) 1 tea spn raisins 1/2 tea spn cardamom powder 1/2 cup water 1-2 tbl spn Ghee
Method: Slightly crush cloves and keep aside. Heat ghee and add cloves, raisins. The cloves and raisins slightly puff up in hot ghee . Add sooji and fry on medium heat mixing continuously till a nice aroma comes out of it. Take out the sooji in a plate.
In the same pan, add water, sugar and heat. Add the saffron strands. Boil it for few minutes.
Switch off the heat and add sooji and mix well. Add cardamom powder and mix well. At this stage, the mixture becomes too watery which is perfectly fine. It gets dry as time passes. Close the lid of the pan and let it sit for about 15-20mins.
When it is dried and can be handled, apply some ghee to hands and make laddoos .
When they are cooled to room temperature, store in air tight containers. Finish them within 1 week.
Makes about 8-10 laddoos
PS: The cardamom powder should not be added till the end. If it is added before, the laddoos loose their aroma. Some people add milk at the end when the laddoo mix becomes too dry. Avoid this situation as much as possible. This decreases the shelf life. If the mixture does not get dry after keeping for about 20mins, you can slightly heat it to get it dry. If the rava is not roasted properly, the laddoos come out to be very sticky. So fry till it turns slightly reddish.
This is one of the most popular sun dried items among Konkanis (after papad ). All these days, I had thought it is specific to Konkani(and Kannada) cuisine, but then I saw Mythili’s ash gourd fritters . After that I saw these fritters in many different places and it looks like everyone has their own version of these fritters.
When we were growing up, aayi used to make this every year. I used to help her spread these sometimes. It always looked like a time consuming and difficult task to me. Since we have a big front-yard, we used to make these in a bulk. Once prepared, these remain good for around a year.
These vadis/odis are either deep fried and eaten or they can be used in many different dishes. At my home, these are mostly used in different dishes. I will post these dishes soon. My husband is a great fan of these dishes, so I always have a big batch with me. But unfortunately when we came to US last year, I forgot to get it and I can’t say how much I missed it. So aayi sent a big batch with my brother last month and again when they came, they got one more batch. Then I got the idea of making it here, so now, I have all the stock that can last for one year (may be).
Ingredients: 1 cup urad dal 1 cup grated ash gourd( kuvaLe ) 2 tea spn chili powder 1/2 tea spn asafoetida powder Salt
Method: Soak urad dal in water overnight. Grate the ash gourd and put it in colander to remove any water from it (reserve this water, it is used later for grinding). Grind the dal with reserved water to a very smooth paste(preferably, don’t use any other water). Now add asafoetida, chili powder and grind again. The mixture should not be too watery. Take out the paste and add the ash gourd pieces(if these have too much water in them, the paste becomes watery. So make sure to squeeze off any water from them). Mix salt. After salt is added, spread them immediately under the sun. If these are kept for long, the mix becomes watery.
In a cup of water, add about 1/2 tea spn oil. Spread a plastic paper under sun. Now spread a handful of oiled water on the paper(this helps in taking out vadis easily).
Now spread the vadis as shown below. Make sure to leave enough space between two, they spread a bit after sometime.
After drying it for 2-3 days, vadis come off the paper easily. If not, remove them and dry again till they become very crispy. Cool them to room temperature and store in air tight container.
