Laddu and lasagna

 

Photo credit: unsplash.com by PrchiPalwe

The spherical sweet is spelt as Laddoo or Laddu as it is just a phonetics based conversion of the Indian word. When it comes to Indian food, what really needs sufficient prior cooking experience before the attempt is the sweet section. The process is definitely not a piece of our cake for beginners.

Laddu is one of the common Indian sweets that is popular in both northern and southern parts of the country.

The way the sweet is made is an interesting sight. A batter is prepared with chickpea flour  and this is swirled in circles on a perforated ladel above hot oil. The batter drips from the pores in the ladel into the oil and become fried small drops which we call as boondhi. Once done, these are scooped out and placed in sugar syrup and mixed with raisins and nuts.  While still hot they are rolled into spheres to become the final laddu. It is a bit of a laborious process but totally worth it.

The laddus have to be rolled while the mixture is still hot or else they would be crumbly and not stay in shape. Hence we apply some flour or oil on the palms before rolling to tolerate the heat. Not meant for tender hands for sure!

One of the top pilgrimage centres for the Hindus in India is the temple in the hill town of Tirupathi in Andhra Pradesh. It  draws a record 40,000 visitors per day and there are long queues and the process for crowd management keeps changing. At Tirupathi , the devotees are given laddus as prasadam. ( food that was offered to the deity and is considered blessed ) .  These laddus have a very unique taste and are much bigger. They apparently bear a Geographical Indication Tag - meaning  that only the TTD ( the temple board) can make or sell them. The laddu has its own Tirupathi laddu Wikipedia page.

There are other types of ladoos made with semolina, roasted chick pea flour etc. 

Food from other lands:

Lasagna !  During the pandemic, with restrictions in place , we explored a new eat out place every week and found one that has amazing lasagna, that too vegetarian ! We ate like we had been starving on a stranded island that day, the lasagna was that good !  Lasagna reminds me of the cartoon cat Garfield. My son used to enjoy the 'yellow cat' videos as he called it on TV as a two year old. Lasagna and TV ! Two items essential for existence in Garfield's view! 

Food for thought: 

The quote for today is

NooL PaLa KaL

Tamil is believed by many to be the oldest language in the world with very rich literary compositions.

 This is a quote from a very ancient Tamil poetic work called Aathichoodi written by poetess Avvayar. It comprises of single line quotes in alphabetical order promoting good habits, discipline and righteousness of actions. 

Nool - book

Pala - many

Kal - (verb) learn 

Four syllables here stress the importance of learning and reading. Read many books and that learning will mould you , is what Avvai is emphasizing !