Ingredients:
- 250 gms besan or gram flour, yields 500 gms boondi
- 500 gms sugar
- 400 ml water
- A few strands of saffron or kesar
- 30 gms pistachios, slivered
- 30 gms almonds, slivered
- 500 ml ghee or clarified butter to deep-fry
- Food grade yellow colour, optional
Ingredients [Top left to right]: Cardamom powder, gram flour, pistachios, saffron, ghee or clarified butter and sugar
Image Credit: Stefan Lindeque/Gulf News
1. Empty the gram flour into a bowl.
Take 250 grams besan or gram flour in a bowl
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2. Start pouring water into the flour mix, a little by little.
Start pouring water
Blend besan or gram flour and water using a whisk
Whisk into a batter like consistency, not too thick or thin
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3. Whisk the mix into a batter like consistency.
Check the batter consistency
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4. Add a little more water to the mix and continue mixing it well.
Add a little more water
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5. Check the consistency, it should be not be too thick or thin.
The consistency of the batter should be semi liquid, not too thick or water like
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6. Add ghee or clarified butter in a pan and heat it.
Heat ghee or clarified butter
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7. Use a sieve to drip the besan batter into the ghee. Ideally a 0 number strainer is preferred for motichoor ladoo.
A Kanpuri (from the Indian city of kanpur) motichoor ladoo thoki also called boondi jhara is a strainer
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8. Pour the batter onto the sieve as the droplets begin frying on medium heat.
Pour the batter using a laddle
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9. Once the boondi begins to fry use a strainer or siever to scoop it out.
Fry boondi on high heat and before it starts turning dark, remove them
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10. The colour of the boondi at this point should not be too dark, remove it just when it is yellow in colour.
Scoop the fried boondi
Collect the fried boondi and allow excess oil to drain
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11. To make the sugar syrup: Add water into a kadhai or wok.
Pour water into a wok/kadhai
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12. Add sugar into the water.
Add sugar
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13. Keep mixing the water and sugar together, so it does not stick to the surface of the vessel.
Stir the mix well
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14. Give it a boil and keep stirring.
Let the syrup boil
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15. Add a few strands of kesar or saffron to the mix.
Add saffron strands into the syrup
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16. At this point, to make it colourful, you can add a food grade colour of your choice - yellow, orange, green. However, ideally it is perfect as is.
Mix upon adding saffron or kesar
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17. Begin adding the fried boondi to the sugar syrup.
Add boondi to the sugar syrup mix
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18. Mix it well together.
Mix the boondi and sugar syrup
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19. Garnish with almond and pistachios.
Remove the boondi and garnish with sliced pistachios and almonds
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20. Mix the boondi and garnish well.
Boondi ladoo mix ready to be rolled into bite sized balls
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21. Begin rolling them into balls, using your hands.
Roll the boondi to bind well
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22. Bind them well so that do they do not fall apart.
Motichoor ladoos are ready
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Keep them aside, let them cool down and serve.
Motichoor Ladoos
Image Credit: Stefan Lindeque/Gulf News
Chef Sugana Ram
Confectionary chef at My Govinda's restaurant, Dubai. He specialises in preparing Indian sweets and desserts.
Chef Ram
Confectionery Chef at My Govinda's restaurant, Dubai.
Recipe courtesy: My Govinda's restaurant
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