The Birth Of Panchasara

My friends S and P and yours truly religiously used to have this tea break in office at around half past four - the rather sleepy time and also the time to start to think about going back home soon! It so happened that S is a naughty guy and he ensured the tea given to the poor and innocent P had no sugar. S and I were eagerly waiting to see P's reaction and on taking the first sip P claimed 'Idhula panchasaram illai!!!' - meaning no sugar in Malayalam! The word was so captivating that I started using it way too often and sugar being the primary component for sweets, why not use it to blog recipes that I try out! And here it is - Panchasara just born and merely one posting old and brand new...

As the name of the Blog is attributed to the sweet giving component – sugar, it would be apt to start with a recipe for sweet. It’s all about this traditional sweet that my mom makes and the only sweet that I make here at US of A and had got quite some heralds. Also it gives a personal touch to prepare a sweet when you invite someone over, rather than buying some XYZee in the shops. So here we go with Maaladu...

Maaladu is a wonderful sweet that my dear mom prepares every now and then and it is especially there for Diwalis. My perima and peripa and their kids used to come to our house for breakfast for every Diwali day and the menu would include Maaladu and Vellai Appam...You can utter Yummy for every single bite that you take during that breakfast. Though maaladu has a lions’ share of sugar, it also has this pottu kadalai (Roasted Channa or Dalia) in one third of sugar's occurrence in the recipe. Once in a while you can have these ladoos (Definitely not for health conscious or the diabetic - but for the rest of the junta - you can have say 1 ladoo in say 2 months and then tread mill an extra 15 min in 5.0 miles/hr!)

The Recipe:

• Sugar - 3 cups
• Split Channa - 1 cup
• Cardamom - 2 - The ladoo can go without this too

Grind the above to a fine powder.

Pour warm ghee and start mixing the powder with the help of ghee.

Keep adding the ghee until you can make solid rounds (ladoos) with the ground mix .

If you want, you can add roasted cashews before making the ladoos.

Probably the simplest sweet recipe with a minimum number of ingredients – and that can be made just like that. That is one thing that I love with this recipe - Easy to make and to show warmth to guests.

With More Culinary Formulae...