Linseed Laddoos

Just like any normal person, I love eating laddoos especially the motichur ones. To me eating a laddoo has always been a special occassion, for I get to eat them only during cousins' weddings and other festivities. Given the frequency at which I consume laddoos, I get this feeling that making them is an arduous process and only a skilled hand can accomplish the task.



Recently, on a particular sunday afternoon, I wanted to eat laddoos (don't ask me what on earth I was doing at that hour instead of enjoying a nice siesta). I rummaged my kitchen to look for potential ingredients to go into the laddoos. These are what I had:

• some lumps of jaggery
• linseeds (white til)
• water

To make the linseed laddoos using jaggery, I needed to first make some jaggery syrup. So I poured two glasses of water into a vessel and added the jaggery lumps (quantity to be added depends entirely on your sweet tooth; I added one cup of jaggery). The syrup making process was the most time consuming. In case you venture out to do this, you can perhaps finish off some other chores while the liquid is getting all syrupy and aromatic.



I started the work on the til seeds in the meantime. In a dry kadai, I roasted the til seeds (3/4th cup of seeds) and spread them on a plate.



As the consistency of the syrup was most critical, I had to keep a check on it at regular intervals. When the liquid started boiling, I took out some of the syrup and poured on a cooler surface. It immediatley started to solidy indicating that the syrup was done. I poured the syrup on to the roasted til seeds in the plate and mixed well.



I immediately started rolling the solid mass (fast) into small balls. Voila, the linseed laddoos were ready to be devoured. Not a bad way to spend a sunday afternoon !! (thought that passed my mind after eating a laddoo).



- priya varadan som