Aval Ladoo for Janmashtami

 Friendship has been beautifully dealt in our greatest epics. The examples are of  the bonding that were created by Sri Rama with the boatman Guha,  the monkey chieftain Sugreeva and even the sibling of the enemy whom he was battling with. The Mahabharatha points the friendship of  Karna with Duriyodhana. The former fought the battle on his friend's side even after having indicated that the opponents were his brothers, and knowing well that he was on the side of evil.
Likewise the Bhagavatham emphasizes Sri Krishna's love for His friends irrespective of  status. It is a well repeated story that Sudhama went to seek the King of Dwaraka's help for a living. He was so poor that his wife had pounded the last few handful of rice to aval/ poha/ beaten rice to offer. It is a norm that you do not go empty handed to visit God, saints and superiors. Thus Sudhama carried in his tattered upper cloth some aval to offer to his friend, and the All-knowing Krishna had granted him riches against each small portion that He consumed.
Every year for Sri Krishna Janmashtami it is a prctice to offer something prepared with beaten rice to the Lord in line with this.

I try to change the dish with the aval and prepare the rest of the goodies every time. This year I had a small quantity of the thick variety hand pounded aval from home. I intended to use that and made this for the neivedhyam. Though I celebrated the birth of Krihna last month, it happens to be celebrated tomorrow also as indicated in the calender. So I decided to share the aval ladoo that I made then.

The aval had some dust as it was almost getting over and hence I undertook a long drawn procedure of washing it and drying for hours and then roasting with some ghee before  pounding it. You may skip all of the cleaning process and just roast and pound if you do not want to labour with your aval. Usually, it is clean or tossing once or twice in a winnow will help clean it.

Ingredients:

2 cups aval/ poha/ beaten rice (thick variety)
2 cups sugar
10-15 cardamoms (peeled and seeds pounded)
1/2  cup ghee
3 tablespoons ghee for roasting
2 tablespoons ghee roasted broken cashew nuts

Method:
Clean the aval as indicated. (by tossing it and removing the sand dust, scum, husk etc.)
It is best to roast the aval in small portions at a time to evenly roast it without charring.
Heat a small amount of ghee reserved for roasting and add a portion of aval to it. Roast evenly until the aval puffs slightly and has a tinge of red.
Transfer to a flat dish allowing it to cool.
Repeat until the entire quantity has been roasted.
Pulse the roasted aval in the mixer to a nearly fine powder, not very fine. The coarse powder gives a nice crunch to the ladoo.
Powder the sugar very fine. And have the cardamoms powdered.
Mix the sugar and cardamom to the aval powder well. Add the roasted cashew nuts,
Divide in four parts.
Take quarter the quantity of the measured ghee and heat it to slightly warm. Pour the ghee on one part of the aval mix. Stir briskly and make balls out of small portions.
To make strong and well rounded balls, cup your palm and place the mix. Gently press this with the fingers of the other hand all the while rotating the mass around. If you roll and press evenly the balls will hold good shape and will not crumble with light pressure.
Once done with one portion, heat some ghee for the next batch. Thus the entire ladoos can be done in batches.
It is important to do in batches as the mixture should be warm to roll the balls. Once cooled the mixture will not gather and will crumble.

 

If desired you may add some coconut also, but that has to be roasted also to remove moisture.
This quantity will make about 60 aval ladoos. I had made with 200ml aval and proportionate ingredients. I got 12 pieces.

The aval pulsed to fine semolina consistency will make the ladoo crunchy while not too dry to choke you.
This was my neivedhyam and we liked the taste and texture. Since I made such small quantity, we had it over four days (as there were other stuff too).