OKKARAI |UKKARAI RECIPE-DIWALI SWEET RECIPE

  Okkarai | Ukkarai is a traditional sweet made in  most of the tamil brahmin houses for diwali. I still remember my mom makes this in a very bulk quantity and except me everybody loves this okkarai very much. When i was talking to my mom yesterday, suddenly i remembered of this and asked her for the recipe. In my in –laws place we don’t make this ,and i made this for my hubby who is very fond of sweets. Here comes the recipe of okkarai.

INGREDIENTS:

CHANNA DAL	1/2 CUP
JAGGERY	1/2 CUP
CASHEW NUTS(BROKEN INTO PIECES)	2TSP
GHEE	2TBLSP
CARDAMOM POWDER	A PINCH

 

METHOD:

• Roast the channa dal in a pan for 2 mins(be careful not to burn this)
• Soak it in water for 3 hours.
• Drain the water and grind this into a smooth paste .Just add 1 tblsp of water while grinding.
• Grease a small bowl with ghee and transfer the ground channa dal to this and steam this for 10 mins.

• After steaming, break it into pieces and once it is cool, just grind it in a mixer to get a make it into fine pieces.

• In a pan put the jaggery and add 2 tblsp of water to this.
• Filter the impurities if any.Keep the flame low.
• Let the jaggery melt and comes to 1 string consistency.
• You can check this by taking the jaggery syrup between the thumb and the index finger.
• When it reaches this stage , add the ground dal to this and mix it nicely.
• Add a tblsp of ghee to this and mix well,till it becomes soft and reaches a puttu or usili consistency.

• It took 10-12 mins for me to reach this stage.
• You can add few tsp of ghee in the middle also while sauting.
• Always keep the flame low while doing this.
• Fry cashews in ghee and garnish the okkarai with cashews.

• Add cardamom  powder to this and mix well.
• Enjoy this as it is.
• Though this may sound weird my mom and grandma will eat this as an accompaniment for CURD RICE.

 

Note:

1. Some may skip the procedure of steaming the ground dal.
2. But this will take more time to get cooked .