Ukdiche Modak is an Indian recipe, famous from western coastal state – Maharashtra. And it is usually prepared for Festival called Ganesh Chaturthi. In fact recipe for Modak is very simple with simple ingredients but it requires little practice especially to mould it into a proper shape. Though Modak moulds are available in the market but handmade Modak tastes and even look better. Please see below my recipe of Modak 🙂

Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 cups of rice flour

1 and 1/2 cups of water (Water & flour ratio should be 1:1)

2 tbsp of ghee (clarified butter)

2 cups of shredded coconut

1 cup of jaggery

1 tsp of cardamom powder

Little pinch of nutmeg powder

Little pinch of salt

1/4 cup of milk (Optional)

Few strands of saffron (Optional)

Water for steaming

Method:

Start with heating 1&1/2 cups of water in a pan. Once water starts boiling, gradually add rice flour and keep stirring the mixture. Once rice flour is added, you can switch off the gas. Flour will soak all the water. Please ensure no lumps are formed and you can kneed the dough properly. Add milk, salt, 1 tbsp of ghee to it and kneed the dough thoroughly. Cover it and keep aside for few minutes. (Tip : Knead the dough when its warm enough which will help to shape the Modak properly.)

Next step is to make stuffing. Heat a pan on medium flame and add mixed coconut and jaggery to it. Keep stirring but do not overcook it. We just need to remove excess moisture from grated coconut. (If overcooked, this stuffing will turn too hard and it will be difficult to mould the Modak).

Add 1 tbsp of ghee, cardamom and nutmeg powder to stuffing. Let it cool down to room temperature.

Next is a moulding process, take the dough and kneed it again just to ensure it is not too soft or hard. Make small lime sized balls of the dough and roll it like small puri. Take this rolled puri on your palm. And start pinching these puris from outer side to form petals and add stuffing at the centre of it. Pinch the petals from the edges till the centre to get nice shapes. Now roll these little petals in anticlockwise direction to form a Modak. Modak mould are available in the market, you can use one instead.

Once all Modak’s are ready, arrange them on a plate for steaming. You can use banana leaf or muslin cloth below the Modak’s so that they won’t stuck to the plate. Add saffrons strands to little milk and put 1 saffron strand over each Modak, it will give nice look and flavour to our Modak. Cover the steamer and steam them for 10 minutes. Check after 10 minutes, if required let them steam for few more minutes.

Our ukadiche modaks are ready to serve 🙂 🙂