Mande (Mandige / Chowde)- Sweet Dish

Mande or Mando is a very simple and an authentic Konkani sweet dish usually prepared during the festival of Diwali, Chaturthi and Weddings! It is a deep-fried flat poori (bigger in size) which is folded like a handkerchief and a generous dose of confectionary sugar mixed with sesame seed is sprinkled on the top. It is a melt in the mouth treat! It is sweet, rich and crunchy! Has a pure look to it as it is white in color and looks so divine!

I call it my handkerchief dessert :) because of the way it is folded and stored. Various regions in Karnataka and Maharashtra know this sweet by various name like Mande, Mandige, Chowde etc.

Try it this Diwali and enjoy it with your family!

Here is the Mande recipe or Chowde recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all purpose flour (Maida)
• 2 tsp ghee (clarified butter)
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp cardamom crushed
• 2 tsp pistachios crushed
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds roasted
• 1 tbsp dry grated coconut roasted (optional)
• pinch salt
• water to knead the dough
• oil to deep fry

Preparation:

• Make a dough by taking maida, add warm ghee, salt and mix everything by rubbing with your hands. Add water 1 tbsp at a time and knead a hard dough. Keep aside for 15 minutes covered.
• Make a mixture of confectionary sugar, cardamom, pistachios and coconut. 
• By taking a small portion of dough, make balls and roll out a disc of 5-6 inch diameter using a rolling pin. It should be thin and not thick disc. 
• Heat oil in a frying pan, work on a med-high flame, else the mande will soak oil while frying. Fry it just like you would fry a papad. The color should remain white. Small bubbles appear on the surface indicating they are cooked. If kept for a longer time, they become stiff and cannot be folded.
• Take it out on a paper towel and immediately sprinkle sugar mixture on the mande, by making use of spoon fold it once and sprinkle more sugar on it. Now make one another last fold and sprinkle sugar mixture again. Leave it to cool down. You can store it in an airtight container for good 1 week. 

njoY!! happY cookinG!!

Notes:* While frying the Mande poori see to it that it doesn't fluff like poori, in order to get a flat poori try making marks on the rolled disc with a fork and then slide in the oil. Fry on med-high flame. Do not fry too much that you get brown color.

Fried Modak

Modak is considered as a favorite food(nevaidya) of Lord Ganesha and all his bhakts(devotees) love to prepare it on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi or any other festival/days related to HIM, like sankashti. It is a stuffed deep fried ball with a modak shape (shaped like Kisses Hershey's: my mom says modak chocolates even to this day :P). It is stuffed with coconut and jaggery mixture!

Mostly every house in Maharashtra will have this as an offering in front of the Ganesha Idol. It is given to all the guests who attend the aarti (pooja) as a prasad (offerings).

Now coming to an interesting story, who knew one day I would start blogging about food! My first post was way back in 2003(maybe?) and it was none other than MODAK recipe on bawarchi.com, if anyone remembers that site. I had searched for the recipe of modak in vain and had not found one (ya can you believe that? I remember getting steamed modak recipes but not fried one's) I finally got it from my mom [Well, my Mom has no concept of measurements, she knows only eyeballing... was tough for me to understand her eyeball measurements :)] I gotta mention, if not for this blog, I would be falling in the same category of eye-balling lol. I somehow managed and the modaks turned out great! I had then sent my recipe to www.bawarchi.com thinking that it would help others who were in the same boat as me! Till recently the recipe was available on the internet, but not anymore :( Maybe they purged the data or something.

So in a way, this is a very special recipe!

One other thing, an interesting game is played while making modaks during the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi. My aunt usually did this ritual. One has to make modaks in odd numbers like 5, 11, 21, 51 etc (any offering to Ganesha must be in odd numbers). While stuffing the modaks, add extra salt or extra sweetness in one of the modaks and when you serve, keep all the fried modaks together. Whoever gets that odd modak is considered lucky and will have a fantastic year ahead :) Some silly fun to look forward to. But now when I think of it, maybe it was a trick to make everyone eat the modaks haha (smart MOMs :))

Bappa Morya: Let us take a look at the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup All purpose flour ( or 1/2 cup wheat flour, 1/2 cup all purpose flour(maida))
• 1 tsp semolina (rava) - optional
• water to knead 
• salt as per taste
• 1 tbsp oil

For filling

• 1/2 cup grated fresh coconut (can use dry coconut too)
• 1/2 cup powdered jaggery
• 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
• 1 tsp sesame seeds (roasted)

For frying:

• 1 cup oil or ghee

Preparation:

• Add 1 tbsp of warm oil to all purpose flour. Mix it very well with your fingers in the maida. 
• Add salt and water little by little to make it a very stiff dough.
• Keep the dough aside for about 10-15 minutes, covered.
• Heat jaggery and coconut together till jaggery melts and forms a uniform mixture with coconut. Add the roasted sesame seeds in the mixture. It smells great.
• Remove from heat and add cardamom powder. Mix everything together.
• Now make the modaks, take small balls of the dough, roll it into small puris (3-4 inch diameter disc)
• Place 1 tbsp of stuffing on the disk(puri) and bring the edges together towards the centre making folds. Seal it at the centre giving a shape of modak.
• Heat oil and deep fry the modaks on medium heat till all sides are brown. Take it out with a slotted spoon and place on paper towel to drain out the excess oil. Let it cool completely before you store it in air tight container.

njoY!! happY cookinG & fryinG!!

Notes:*- You can use whole wheat flour too, to make modaks, but when you use all purpose flour you get flaky, crunchy and perfect modaks.