Ukadiche modak, steamed rice dumplings with coconut and jaggery
उकडीचे मोदक
A thin shell of steamed rice dough around fresh coconut cooked with jaggery. The modak of Ganesh Chaturthi, with the filling taken off the heat at the right moment.
Ganesh Chaturthi · Prep 30 min · Cook 30 min · Total 1 hr 20 min · Makes 11 modak · Maharashtrian dessert
Ukad means steamed, and ukadiche modak are the steamed ones: a white, pleated shell of rice dough around a filling of fresh coconut and jaggery, offered on Ganesh Chaturthi in counts of eleven or twenty-one.
The shell takes practice. The filling takes attention, for about eight minutes, and that is where the jaggery decides whether the modak is soft or leathery.
Stop the filling while it is still moist
Coconut and jaggery cooked too little stay runny and tear the shell. Cooked too long, the jaggery sets and the filling turns hard and chewy once it cools. Take it off the heat as soon as it comes together and still looks a little wet. It firms up on its own.
Ingredients
- 1½ cups (about 150 g) Fresh coconut, grated
- ¾ cup (about 150 g) ShuddhGaon jaggery powder
- 1 tsp Ghee
- ½ tsp Cardamom powder
- A pinch Nutmeg, grated
- 1 cup (about 150 g) Fine rice flour
- 1¼ cups Water
- 1 tsp Ghee
- A pinch Salt
Method
- Cook the filling Warm the teaspoon of ghee in a pan, add the coconut and the jaggery powder and cook on a medium-low flame for 7 to 9 minutes, stirring. The gur melts, the mixture turns wet, then begins to dry and hold together. Stop there, stir in the cardamom and nutmeg and let it cool completely.
- Make the ukad Bring the water to a boil with the salt and the ghee. Lower the flame, add the rice flour all at once and stir quickly until it comes together. Cover it, leave it on the lowest flame for 2 minutes, then take it off the heat and rest it, covered, for 5 minutes.
- Knead it while it is warm Tip the dough into a wide plate. Dip your palm in water or ghee and knead for 4 to 5 minutes, until it is smooth with no cracks. Keep it under a damp cloth.
- Shape the cup Take a lemon-sized ball and press it into a 3-inch disc, thinner at the edge than in the middle. Cup it in your palm.
- Pleat and fill Pinch pleats all the way around the rim, as many as you can manage. Put a spoonful of filling in the middle, gather the pleats up to a point and pinch it closed.
- Steam Set the modak on a greased plate or a piece of banana leaf and steam them for 10 to 12 minutes, until they look glossy and are no longer sticky to the touch.
- Serve warm With a little ghee poured over the top.
With our jaggery
Powder melts into the coconut evenly and at once. With a block, hard lumps are still melting when the rest of the filling is already done, and that is how it gets overcooked. Equal weights of coconut and jaggery is the proportion. Our gur is unbleached, so the filling comes out a deep brown that shows through the thin white shell.
Tips from our kitchen
- Use a mould the first time Grease a modak mould, line it with dough, fill it and seal the base. Hand-pleating can wait until the dough feels familiar.
- If the dough cracks It has dried out. Knead in a few drops of hot water and keep it covered.
- The flour matters Use fine, fresh rice flour, sold as modak flour in Maharashtra. Coarse flour gives a shell that splits in the steamer.
Questions people ask
- Which jaggery is best for modak?
- A soft, clean sugarcane jaggery that melts evenly. Powder or finely grated block both work. Avoid the hard-setting kind sold for chikki, which makes the filling chewy.
- What is the ratio of coconut to jaggery for modak filling?
- Equal weights: 150 g of fresh grated coconut to 150 g of jaggery. In cups that is 1½ cups of coconut to ¾ cup of jaggery powder.
- Why did my modak filling turn hard?
- It was cooked too long and the jaggery set. Take the filling off the heat as soon as it comes together and still looks moist.
Worth reading alongside this
The jaggery this recipe is made with
- ShuddhGaon Jaggery Powder Pouch — The same fine gud powder in resealable 500 g and 1 kg zip pouches
- ShuddhGaon Jaggery Powder — Fine gur shakkar that melts into tea, coffee and milk
- ShuddhGaon Jaggery Combo — Cubes for the cup, powder for the kitchen