Diwali Recipes - Sweets and savories

A festival full of sweet childhood memories,

sky full of fireworks,

mouth full of sweets,

house full of diyas and heart full of joy.

Wishing you all a very happy Diwali!

Diwali(Deepavali) is a Festival of Lights. The significane of Diwali is that, it removes the darkness and brings light to the life. This auspicious occasion comes on the tamil month Ipasi(late october or early november) on krishnapakshi chaturthi.This festival is celebrated to enjoy the happy moments of vanquishing of the demon Narakasura by Lord Krishna, the triumph of good over Evil!.Diwali is a festival where people from all age groups participate. They give expression to their happiness by lighting earthen 'diyas' (lamps), decorating the houses, bursting firecrackers and inviting near and dear ones to their households.

On Diwali day, early in the morning, elderly people will put kolam and will keep sweets, snacks, crakers, new dresses, vetrilai paaku(Beetel leaf) and coconut for neivehdyam. The Hindus usually awake early in the morning of deepavali around 3am and the first ritual will be having an oil bath, which is an important feature of Diwali. In brahmin familes Diwali Legium will be offered to every individual which will make your stomach ready for the marathon between your hand and mouth on diwali. Then the new cloths will be offered to the every individual by the elderly people. Most of the ladies would be clad in silk saris or Punjabi suits of various bright shades. Hindus would also pay their respects to the elderly and most families would go to the temple. The houses would be decorated with oil lamps and children will play with firecrackers to celebrate the festival.

On this day, we prepare sweets and snacks and offer the same to friends, neighbours and relatives. You can try some of the recipes mentioned below.

Boondhi Laddu

Kaju Katli

MysorePak

Kasi Halwa

    

Madras Mixture

          

Madras Mixture

Mixture is a very nice snack, although it is quite time consuming. We prepare this for every Diwali and keep for almost couple of months.

Prep Time 30 mins

cook'g time 75 mins

Ingredients

Red chillies - 15 to 25 (15 for more heat, and 25 for HOT)

pea nuts - 1 cup

Curry leaves - 3 bunches

Cashew - 1/4 cup

Bengal gram - 1/2 cup (optional - I do not like this)

for boondhi

Gram flour - 2cups

oil - 1/4 kg

Salt - 1 tsb

Water 2 cups

Perforated spoon

for murukku

2cups Rice flour

1/2cup Gram flour

2tsp moong dhal flour

2tsp Butter

2tsp Cumin seeds + sesame seeds

1+1/2tsp Red chilly powder

Oil

Salt

for sev

Gram flour - 2cups

oil - 1/4 kg

Salt - 1 tsb

Water 1 cups

Sev press

Boondhi

1. Take 2 glasses of gram flour, and add 2 cups of water and mix it well until there

are no dumplings.

2. Add half a table spoon of salt. And mix it well. The batter should be slightly

thinner to the Idli batter.

3. It is very important to use a perforated spoon. The holes should not be too big

or too small.

4. Heat oil in a wide pan until smoky.

5. Hold the spoon 1 inch above the oil and pour some batter on the spoon. Tap very

lightly at edge of spoon to allow small droplets to fall in the oil. (If the

batter is watery, then the it will not fall as balls or if the batter is not

falling through the spoon then add little water to the boondi to fall down in

round shape)

6. Keep adding the boondi in oil until the pan is entirely filled.

7. Stir the boondis in the oil gently and fry till crisp but not brown. Drain and

Keep it aside.

8. Repeat this until you finish with the entire batter.

Sev

1. Mix the gram flour and water by adding salt. The batter should be gooey sticky dough.

2. Grease hands with some oil for ease in handling dough. Grease the inside cylinder of press.

Fill with dough and screw the top tight.

3. Heat oil in heavy large frying pan. Hold the press about 8 inches above the hot oil. When it is hot, proceed to press and drop the dough through the press.

Move your hands in circular motion to make a circle and keep coming in to

form smaller circles and finish off when you come to center. You may cut off the dough with your fingers.

4. Cook for about a minute or so. Then carefully flip over the sev with a fork. Cook another minute, do not allow to become golden. Remove the sev when it still looks undone and whitish. Place on kitchen paper to drain and cool.

5. Repeat till all the dough is used up.

Store as is, or crush to small pieces.

Store in an air tight container.

Mullu Murukku

1. Mix all the ingredients above and add water untill becomes soft dough, it might be bit sticky, grease ur palms to avoid stickiness..

2. Use the murukku press with star nozzle.. heat the oil for deepfrying, meanwhile take a small portion from dough n squeeze out over a greased plate in circular shape

3. drop the murukku in the medium hot oil n fry on both sides until they turns brown, drain the excess of oil with paper towel.

4.Now, brake murukkus into small ones, and mix with bondhi and sev. Fry the red chillies and grind to soft powder, add salt, asafoetida, and add to the above mixture.

5.Fry the curry leaves, cashew and pea nuts separately until crispy and add to the mixture.

6. Store in a air tight container and served for more than a month.

I'm sending my entry to Blog Hop