The celebrations included preparation of ''Ugadi Pachchadi'', a delicacy made of new jaggery, tamarind, raw mango pieces and Neem flowers
to drive home the philosophy that life is a mix of of sweet, sour, pleasant and bitter incidents.
This year, I have tried my best to keep up with all that my mom used to cook for this festival. Here are a few recipes shared.
So, read on and leave your comments would really appreciate that.
Recipe one:
UGADI PACHADI
Ingredients:
1 cup of raw fresh mango (cleaned and dried and finely chopped along with skin into small pieces)
1 tbsp of neem tree flowers
1 cup of grated jaggery
3 -4 tbsp tamarind paste
red chilli pwd (according to your choice)
salt to taste
Preparation:
Mix all the ingredients mentioned above and your ugadi pachadi is ready
Recipe 2
RAVA LADDU
Ingredients
1 cup fine sooji/rava
1 cup sugar
1 tsp raisins
1 tbsp cashew nuts
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
1 cup milk
1/2 cup Ghee
Preparation
Grind the sugar into a fine mixture with cardamom. This helps to get the cardamom to be properly ground and the aroma to be properly blend into the sugar powder.
Heat ghee and roast cashews and raisins. Remove the raisins and cashews and keep them aside. Add sooji in the same ghee and fry for about 5 mins on medium heat mixing continuously till a nice aroma comes out of it. Add the sugar powder to sooji and mix for 5 mins.
Take out from heat and let the mixture cool down for some time.
Now make laddoos by adding milk to the mixture(Do not add the milk all at one time). If you feel that the mixture is hard just keep adding milk, Make 8 to 10 laddoos and let them cool down.
Recipe Three
Avada (Perugu Vada)
Ingredients
1 cup Urad Dal
3 cups Yogurt
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
1/2 tsp Cumin seeds (Jeera)
2 Red Chillies
8 to 10 Curry leaves
Soak urad dal for 6 hours in water. Grind to a smooth thick paste with very little water. Take oil in a deep bottomed pan on medium heat for deep frying. Add salt to the urad dal batter and mix well. Make into lemon size balls.
On wet hand place urad dal batter ball and shape it like a donut. Place it into the hot oil and deep fry it until both sides turn golden brown.
This process will make vadas(garelu).
Blend yogurt using a hand blender for couple of minutes. Add salt to taste. In a small pan add 2 tsp oil on medium heat. To the hot oil add mustard.Once mustard sputters add 1 tsp urad dal, cumin, red chillies and curry leaves. When it turns golden brown add it to yogurt and mix well. Set it aside.
Dip all the vadas into the yogurt and refrigerate them.
