DIWALI SWEETS AND SNACKS PREPARATION

In this blog, we are going to see about my Diwali (2020) preparation of sweets, snacks. How to prepare before celebration day and celebrate the day without any tension. I want to share some of the simple ideas which may be helpful for beginners.

THREE DAYS BEFORE DIWALI

Adhirasam dough Preparation:

Around noon time, I soaked the raw rice for 1 hr, and drained and spread the rice in cloth inside the home and allows to dry until grain wont stick in hand but having little moisture in it.

* Around evening time, I ground the rice in mixie to powder, which should not be too fine , it should little coarse, sieved to separate the bigger unground rice. (Always kept the rice flour covered with cloth to prevent drying )

* Then did the jaggery syrup (1:1 raw rice : jaggery) until the very soft ball consistency. (when the syrup drop in water, it should not dissolve, able to form ball but the ball should be very soft)

* Then pour the hot syrup into the rice flour and mix well with cardamon, dry ginger powder and sesame seed.

* Placed the dough in the vessel and covered with cloth tightly and kept in room temperature.

Pottukadalai Urundai Making:

* I made excess jaggery syrup for adhirasam, I boiled the left over syrup until it reach the strong breakable ball consistency.

*Then add roasted channadal (pottukadalai) after roast for a while, into the jaggery syrup and then i made ball shaped pottukadalai urundai while syrup was hot by greasing hand using ghee.

TWO DAYS BEFORE DIWALI

Rasagulla and Rasamalai Preparation

* I was started the preparation in the evening by boiling the homogenized milk but raw milk is good for the rasagulla preparation. Squeezed lemon juice little by little until the milk curled and get clear whey. Then separated the chenna from the whey using clean white cloth. Then I washed chenna cold water to prevent overcooking and to remove lemon flavor. Then tied the chenna in the cloth and hanged it to remove extra water. Whey separated from the milk is so healthy, it can be used for several ways. I used the whey for kneading chapathi dough, which makes the chapathi very soft and healthy.

* After an hour, knead the drained chenna very gently to make very soft dough. Divided the dough to equal halves. I made small balls from one half and made flat disc shaped with the other half dough.

* Sugar syrup (I used unbleached sugar hopefully it is better than normal sugar) was made with 5:1 (water: sugar) ratio with cardomon and saffron . Dropped the balls into the vigorously boing sugar syrup.( this sugar sugar dont need any consistency just boil the syrup for 5 min).

* Covered and allowed to boil until the balls double its size. Meantime got ready with ice cold water. Once its reached the stage, carefully transfered the round ball rasagulla to the icecold water to avoid the shrinking of back to its original size. I left the disc shaped rasagulla to the sugar syrup around 15 - 20 minutes.

* In meantime, for rabri preparation boiled full fat milk with desired amount of sugar and saffron, keep stirring to prevent burning at the bottom. Turned off when it was reduced to half of its volume.

* Now disc shaped rasagulla was soaked well, squeezed the syrup from the rasagulla and transferred carefully into warm rabri and allowed the rasagulla to the rabri and garnished with chopped almonds and prepared rasamalai wasrefrigerated when it reaches the room temperature. It always amazing when rasamalai soaked long time and served chill.

* Ragulla was removed from the cold water after 10- 15 and transfer carefully into the sugar syrup and refrigerated.

1 DAY BEFORE DIWALI

Making Murukku, Nippattu, Adhirasam

* In the evening, I started making Coconut milk murukku using wood pressed groundnut oil

* Then I made Nippattu , this time I used heart shaped mold for making Nippattu.

* In the night before Diwali, I mixed the Adhirasam dough nicely and made small balls of it. Then pressed with round lid and made a hole at the centre .