Stuffed with love

Ganesh festival is the festival of happiness and togetherness, but what modaks bring together are generations. 8220;My grandmother makes the best modaks in the world8221; or 8220;I wish you had eaten the modaks made by my granny8221; and sentences of similar kinds are quite common for the ones who visit Maharashtrian families during Ganesh festival. In most of the Maharashtrian families, grandmothers are known to make modaks for the grandchildren.

According to Sayali Panse, student, 8220;Since childhood, modak and granny has been an equation. On the first day of Ganesh festival, we used to go to our grandmother. She was an amazing cook and more than the recipe it was the love that used to add the taste to the modaks. She never ever kept modaks ready for us. After the aarti, she used to cook it for us and serve it hot. Wherever I go, I will never in my life forget the modaks that my granny used to make.8221;

Alaka Kshirsagar, teacher, says, 8220;Making modaks for your grandchildren is a different feeling altogether. I used to make modaks for my children as well, but with grandchildren there is more affection and belonging. I make modaks and serve them with hot ghee. In fact my four-year-old grandson likes to have the modaks without the fillings and feeding him is a great satisfaction.8221;

Nirmala Kulkarni owns a small food joint in Dahnukar colony is also a grandmother and says, 8220;Yes we make modaks otherwise also but what is special about the modaks in Ganesh festival is that they are made with coconut, kesar, elaichi and jaggery. Other than that, there are a number of fillings like the ones from cucumber, khoya, potatoes and so on.8221;

Pradnya Kadam, housewife adds, 8220;Me and my mother, both make modaks, but my children, more than my modaks, like the ones prepared by my mother. And I feel that it is quite natural because as a child, I used to prefer the ones mace by my granny. So I take it in a positive spirit thinking that my grandchildren would enjoy my modaks.8221;

While this is about granny and grandchildren, Ganesha seems to enjoy modaks made by anyone and everyone. Otherwise, eating 21 modaks is no joke!

Recipe

Ingredients coconut, jaggery, elaichi, poppy seeds, rice flour.

Method Stuffing: Grate the coconut and mix it with jaggery 750 gms of jaggery against 1 kg of coconut and cook for sometime. Then add cardamom powder and poppy seed to the mixture.

The coating is made of rice flour. Take water and rice in equal quantity. Heat the kadai, and put some ghee, then add water. When the water starts boiling, put rice flour in it. In about 45 minutes, the mixture of water and rice flour becomes homogeneous. Now knead the rice flour mixture with your hand to prepare soft dough of the mixture. Now it is ready to be filled with the coconut stuffing. Steam the filled modak for 10 minutes and serve with hot ghee.