The ten-day festival of Ganesh Chaturthi is incomplete without savouring Modaks—the pillowy white, steamed, rice flour dumplings, filled with a stuffing of fresh coconut and jaggery, and laced with poppy seeds and cardamom. “Steaming modaks over a bed of fragrant turmeric leaves and eating them with freshly made ghee gives it its true flavour,” said author and menu consultant, Saee Koranne-Khandekar.
She has authored two books, Pangat, a feast: Food and Lore from Marathi Kitchens and Crumbs!: Bread Stories and Recipes for the Indian Kitchen and shares a recipe for ukadiche modak from the former.
“After many years of struggling to get the shape and texture right, I finally learnt how to make modaks at my mother-in-law’s maternal home in Vasai, where half the wadi (neighbourhood) would come together for meals and prasad on the festival,” said Khandekar. She learnt to prepare the sweet, coconut-filled dumpling from Shipla Bhide, an English teacher by profession but an expert at making traditional Marathi sweets.
“Shipla taught me that the texture of the modak dough depends on the flour you use. Preparing one’s modak dithi (flour) is the easiest,” recommended Khandekar. She also mentioned how rice flour is either too coarse or too old, and finer flour is needed to prepare a sticky dough (which is easy to shape). “I would say grind sago pearls with the rice so that the concentrated starchiness from the pearls helps the rice flour bind better,” Khandekar concluded.
