Modak

What you need
2 cups rice flour
fresh coconut grated - 2 cups
Jaggery - 1.5 cup
Cardomom
oil
salt to taste


What to do

For the Filling
1.Cut the jaggery in small pieces, or better buy the one which comes in small pieces.
2. heat a pan on a low flame, add the jaggery. The jaggery quickly gets black on high heat, make sure it melts on low heat.
3. Add coconut to the molten jaggery. Mix well. Keep mixing and let it cook until it gets brown.
4. When the mixture is done, remove from flame, add cardomom powder and keep aside

For the cover
1. Heat 2 cups of water in a pan, add 1 tbsp of oil and a little salt.
2. When it starts boiling, add all the rice flour, give a quick stir and cover.
3. Wait for just about 2 min and remove from flame. Keep it covered.
4. After 3-4 min, remove the mixture in a large plate.
5. here come the tricky part. the mixture is hot, but need kneading right away. The easy way to go is, take a small steel bowl (vaati), oil the base of it(from the outside). And using the oiled base, smash the mixture nicely. Making sure that the lumps if any, are broken up. This process will determine how the end product turns out.
6. After the initial kneading, keep the bowl aside, and knead with hand, the way you would do for rotis. make smooth dough

Now to the main part
1. Take a drop or two of oil and rub the fingers. Take a small dough ball. Hold it like you would hold a sandwich. With the thumbs up.
Rotate it using both hands flattening it out in the process. Try and make it shaped like a small katori (bowl) and not a disk. Can be done if thumbs exert more pressure than the other fingers.
Don't make this too thin.
2. Fill it with a small amount of the above filling.
3. Pinch the sides of the dough katori that you made and take the ends together. Make sure the filling is not spilling out.
4. Make at least 7-8 modaks this way and steam them.
5. Heat water in a large pot. Oil the base of a small pan and keep the modaks in this, making sure they are not crammed up. You can also use Alluminium foil at the base of this pan.
6. Cover and steam for 15 min.
7. When you remove the cover, the water might have entered the small pan with modaks which is fine, Don't panic.

How to serve
Serve the modaks with ghee.

Vanessa special tips
1. You can add dry fruits to the filling or change the proportion of jaggery according to how sweet you want it.
2. You can also go 75-25 with jaggery and sugar
3. If you have a steaming pan for dhokla/idli...they work fine for modaks. Procedure of steaming is same.
4. If you run out of the filling, and there is left over dough, Add some cumin and cilantro to the dough, knead it again. Take some of this dough and roll it with the hand in the form of a thick a stick. Steam these just like the modaks.
These thingies taste magnificent.