Discover the Best Indian Dessert Recipes on How to Perfect Modak

Modak, also called ukadiche modak, is a traditional dessert of Maharashtrian cuisine. It's essentially rice flour dumplings stuffed with a coconut and jaggery filling. It's popularly offered to Lord Ganesha and is always present during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival.

Ingredients:

For the dough cover:

• 1 cup rice flour
• 5 cups water
• ¼ teaspoon ghee or oil
• ¼ teaspoon salt

For the sweet stuffing:

• 1 cup fresh grated coconut
• 1 cup finely chopped jaggery or grated or powdered jaggery
• 1 teaspoon cardamom powder or 6 to 7 green cardamoms, powdered in a mortar-pestle & husks removed
• ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg or ground nutmeg powder
• ½ teaspoon poppy seeds (khus khus)
• ½ teaspoon Ghee or oil
• 1 tablespoon rice flour

Directions:

• In a pan or kadhai, heat some ghee on low heat. Add the poppy seeds and fry till the seeds start crackling. Then add the grated coconut, the jaggery, cardamom powder and nutmeg. Mix well and cook this mixture on a low heat. The jaggery will melt and as you continue cooking, it will start to dry. Once it does, turn off the heat. Be careful because if you end up overcooking it then the jaggery will harden. Set aside. As it cools, the mixture will continue to thicken.
• In a pan, add water, ghee and salt. Let it heat on medium power till it comes to a boil. Then reduce the heat and slowly add the rice flour, one spoon at a time. As you add it, keep stirring continuously and quickly. Stir till all the rice flour has integrated with the water. Then turn off the heat. Cover and set aside for about 5 minutes.
• Then transfer the dough to a large plate and begin to knead it. Apply some water on your palms if it feels too hot. Knead thoroughly until it smoothens.
• Then make small balls with the dough, using your palms to shape them. Take a ball and flatten it by applying some pressure under your palm till it looks like a disc. Place the sweet filling in the middle of this dough disk. Then bring together all the edges and join them. Then shape and taper the top of the ball into a modak shape.
• If you have molds, you don't need to shape them by hand. Grease the mold with some ghee. Then, simply place the dough inside the mold, add the sweet stuffing, and then cover with more dough. Then remove from the mold and apply more ghee to the mold before making the next modak. Make all the modaks in this way.
• Once your modaks are shaped, grease a pan with ghee and place the modaks in the pan. Cover with a plate.
• Take water in a pot and heat till it starts to boil. Place a rack on top of it and place the modak on that. Steam the modaks for 15 minutes in this way on medium heat. Once they are steamed, drizzle some ghee on them. You know it's done steaming if it doesn't feel sticky to touch. If it still feels sticky, steam for a few more minutes.

Notes, tips and tricks:

• The jaggery can be from a block or it can be powdered jaggery. The initial texture of the jaggery makes no difference to the final taste and texture.
• If you don't have fresh grated coconut, you can also use frozen grated coconut or desiccated coconut.
• If you don't have poppy seeds on hand, you can just skip adding them. It doesn't make much of a difference to the final dish.
• Don't overcook the jaggery mixture or it will make the jaggery hard. If that happens, add some hot water to the stuffing and mix well. That will make the jaggery soft again.
• If there are cracks in the dough, that’s probably because the dough dried out because it didn't have enough water. Simply add more warm water. But don't add more oil or ghee or the modaks will tear when they are shaped.
• When flattening the dough balls, ensure that it's not flattened too thick or too thin. If too thick, it will take longer to cook and taste doughy. If too thin, it will tear while shaping. It should be just right. Enough to hold the filling without tearing but not too dense.