Easy Homemade Recipe for Making Modak For Ganesh Chaturthi (2 Recipes)

Easy Homemade Recipe for Making Modak For Ganesh Chaturthi (2 Recipes)

Modak is a traditional sweet dish made of rice flour and coconut. It is traditionally served during the Hindu festival of Ganesh Chaturthi as Lord Ganesha’s favorite food.

The dish is typically steamed and served with a sweetened coconut filling.

Ganesh Chaturthi is a major Hindu festival celebrated in honor of Lord Ganesha. Festivals commemorate the arrival of Lord Ganesh from Kailash Parvat with his mother, Goddess Parvati/Gauri.

To know more about the festival, read Ganesh Chaturthi Dates Start and End Date, Ganesh Visarjan, Ganesh Chaturthi Quotes 

It usually lasts for 10 days and is observed throughout India. On the festival’s last day, large processions are held to immerse Lord Ganesha’s idol in water.

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Modak and Ganesh Chaturthi are intimately linked, as the sweet dish is considered to be Lord Ganesha’s favorite food. The festival is therefore an ideal time to enjoy this delicious treat!

In the days leading up to Ganesh Chaturthi, many shops begin to sell modak moulds. It is convenient to buy them online at Amazon.in or Amazon.com.

Chef’s Note: I use the DS Ganpati Plastic Modak and Chocolate Mould 4 Size Combo to make my homemade modaks. I could make 5 Jumbo modaks, 5 Medium modaks, 7 small modaks and 20 miniature modaks. I could male total 37 modaks from this recipe and these moulds. I have doubled the ingredients list that I have given below for making these 37 modaks at one go.

If you are a beginner, you can either make the half-moon shape yourself or buy the moulds.

You’ll need quite a bit of time and patience to make the modak recipe, especially if you don’t have the right texture of rice dough.

Homemade modak can be improved through practice. There is a lot of patience and effort involved in preparing modak recipe.

It is good if you have the modak moulds. They make the stuffing work easier.

Homemade Recipe for Making Modak For Ganesh Chaturthi- Recipe 1

Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 30 mins
Shaping Modak: 40 mins
Total Time: 1 hr 20 mins

Cuisine: Indian, Maharashtrian
Course: Sweets
Author: Ranjeeta Nath Ghai

Ingredients:

• 1 cup rice flour
• ½ ltr water/milk
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 cup grated coconut
• ½ cup jaggery, grated or 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp cardamom powder
• ¼ tsp grated nutmeg/jaiphal
• ½ tsp poppy seeds (khus khus) – optional
• ½ cup Ghee or oil
• 5 almonds sliced thinly
• 5 cashews sliced thinly
• 37 raisins (one for each modak)

Method for Making Sweet Stuffing (Puran):

1. In a large bowl, take the grated jaggery, add grated coconut, mix well and set aside.
2. In a small pan, dry roast poppy seeds and keep it ready.
3. Heat 1 tbsp ghee in a frying pan; add cardamom powder, nutmeg powder, and poppy seeds. Fry for a few seconds.
4. Add the jaggery-coconut mixture, mix everything well and keep stirring on medium to low heat.
5. Initially, it’ll be hard like a lump, then it’ll soften up. Keep stirring till you see the mixture become a little thicker than before… it’ll be visibly reduced and slightly start to leave sides.
6. Close the gas, Shift the modak stuffing to a plate, and set it aside.
7. Gently spread out the stuffing with a butter knife a little so that it’ll cool off faster. This way, you’ll not burn your fingers when you stuff the modak moulds or shape them by hand.

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Method for Making Outer Shell (Modak):

1. Combine the rice flour, water, salt and oil in a large bowl and mix well to make a soft dough.
2. Knead the dough continuously til it is smooth. To make the dough less sticky, add a little more flour; to make it moister, add a little more water.
3. Make 12-16 equal portions of the dough.
4. Grease your hands with oil and take one portion of the dough. Create a ball out of it and then flatten it out. 
5. Place the grated coconut and jaggery in the center of the flattened dough.
6. Bring up the edges of the dough and pleat them, so that they come together at the top to form a modak shape.
7. Repeat this process with the remaining dough and filling ingredients.
8. Steam the modaks in a steamer or idli cooker for 10-12 minutes.
9. Serve hot or cold, as desired. Enjoy!

Alternate Method for Making Outer Shell (Modak Without Steaming): Recipe 2

1. Put ghee in the kadhai and add the rice flour.
2. On the parallel gas stove, boil the milk on high flame till it is reduced to half its quality.
3. Keep stirring the rice flour continuously on medium to low heat till it changes colour from white to off-white/beige/very light brown.
4. Once done then switch off the heat and keep stirring till the vessel cools down a little so that the rice flour doesn’t burn.
5. Add the reduced milk in the kadhai and mix well and allow it to cool down to a level where you can knead the mixture with your hands.
6. Knead well. If it is crumbly, add a little hot milk to it in small quantities till it binds well.
7. Now, the dough is ready to be put into the mould.
8. Grease the mould once before adding the dough to line it.
9. Add the modak filling.
10. Press the mould well, and your modak is ready to eat. No steaming is required as the rice is cooked well.
11. It is ready to be served to our beloved Ganesha and eaten with devotion.

How to Make a Perfect Modak: Expert Tips

• One of the trickiest parts of making modak is getting the right texture in the rice dough. Dry dough will be difficult to shape and the resulting texture will be chewy and dense after steaming. 
• I have shared two ways: one is the steaming method, and the other is a much simpler yet tasty instant method. I prefer the second method as it is time-saving.
• Using milk instead of water makes the modak softer to chew.
• It works perfectly for a smooth, soft dough when I use rice flour and water in proportion. You may be required to add more or less water/milk depending on the texture of the rice flour.
• If the stuffing is overcooked, the jaggery will become hard and chewy. You can correct this by adding a few tablespoons of hot water to the mixture and stirring well. 
• By heating the jaggery, the hard consistency will be broken down and the softness will be achieved. The mixture can even be cooked on low heat with a sprinkle of water until it becomes soft.
• In the absence of water, the dough will become dry and crack. When you shape the dough with too much oil or ghee, it will tear.
• Make sure the dough is not too thin or too thick when it is flattened. If the dough is thin, it will tear while shaping, and if it is thick, the dough will not taste good and take longer to cook.
• You can also use store-bought rice flour to make this dish.
• If you are using jaggery in syrup form, make sure to add it to the grated coconut mixture while it is still warm, so that it melts easily.
• To get perfectly shaped modaks, you can use modak molds or simply shape them by hand.
• You can also deep fry the modaks instead of steaming them. However, this will make them less healthy.
• If you want to make vegan modaks, you can use jaggery syrup instead of ghee in the stuffing mixture. You can substitute oil instead of ghee for frying the aromatic spices.

I hope you enjoy this delicious and easy-to-make Modak recipe! Let me know how it goes. Happy cooking!

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