Sweets Fit for a Deity

Y'know what's great about Ganesh, Gentle Reader? A lot of things.

First off, good 'ol Ganesh has an elephant's head. There's a great story behind that, the type that sends a person to therapy for years:

"Well, you see, my dad, Shiva, the god of death and destruction, came home from war not knowing that Mom had decided to have a kid--me--to stand guard while she took her baths. Anyway, Dad came home one day while Mom was in the bath, and I dutifully turned him away, not knowing he's my dad and because Mom was, after all, in the tub. Dad, he freaked out at being turned away from his own home by some stranger, so what'd he do? He lopped off my head.

"Of course, as soon as he learned whose head he'd lopped off, he rushed out to make amends, vowing to take the life of the first living thing he encountered to replace my head. Bully for him and for me, that first living thing was an elephant. So while I guess it's great for family harmony that Dad tried to make it up to Mom for, y'know, lopping off my head, I'm stuck here with this elephant head. Not that I'm complaining or anything...."

Because of Ganesh's duty as his mother's bath guard, Ganesh is the patron god of entrances. But that's not his only realm of deity duty, which leads me to the second thing I find really cool about Ganesh: He's the patron god of writers and artists. Furthermore, he's linked with one of the great epics of all time, the Mahabharata (700 verses of which are the Bhagavad Gita). You see, Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata, wanted to dictate the verses of his epic to someone capable of writing extremely fast and without mistakes. Lord Brahma decided Ganesh was the only person equal to this great task, and our elephant-headed bath guard used his own broken tusk to record Vyasa's tale.

There's a challenge between the author and his dictation taker, but that's another story.

Take that, Saint Francis de Sales! What epics did you record, huh? You just fell off a horse a few times. Sheesh, some patron saint you are.

Finally, what I also dig about Ganesh is that he's a candy freak. Ganesh loves him some sweets. Of course, sweets in India, called mithai, are a little different from those we devour mindlessly here in the U.S. I urge you, Gentle Reader, to score yourself some burfi or gulab jamun or laddu, sometimes spelled ladoo. Better yet, make some ladoo yourself, for it's Ganesh's favorite.

Besan Ladoo1 1/2 C besan (chickpea flour)
4 T sooji (coarse semolina for giving texture, not flour)*
1/2 C ghee (clarified butter)
3/4 C sugar
1 t cardamom powder
4-5 T almonds, coarsely chopped
4-5 T pistachios, chopped
1 T raisins
*Optionally, replace the sooji with besan to make this recipe gluten free.

1. Dry roast the besan over medium-low heat until it's aromatic.
   
2. In a second pan, warm the ghee over low heat without overheating. If it is solidified, then it will melt.
   
3. Add the ghee to the besan, mix well and then allow to cool from hot to warm. Don't let it cool completely.
   
4. While the besan-ghee mixture is cooling, add the raisins to the pan formerly containing the ghee to allow the raisins to plump slightly, then set aside.
   
5. Add the chopped almonds to the ghee pan, toast them 1-2 min. and then set them aside.
   
6. Add the sugar, cardamom, raisins, pistachios (if using) and almonds to the besan-ghee mixture, mixing well. Optionally, reserve half of the almonds for garnishing the ladoos after they're formed.
   
7. To form the ladoo, pinch off a small amount of the "dough," roll it between your palms to form a ball and then set aside to cool completely. If you reserved half of the almonds, press pieces of them into the ladoo you just formed or roll the ladoo in the almond bits, first rolling it in a small amount of melted ghee, if necessary, to help the almonds stick.

Yield: 10-20 ladoos, depending on the size you make

Nutritional Info
I got this great, easy recipe from a fellow food blog, ChefInYou.com, with some additions (namely, the pistachios) from a similar recipe on Indian Food Recipes From Bharathi's Kitchen. Unfortunately, neither blog had nutritional information for the recipes, but if you only eat one or two small ladoos, you'll be fine. Don't be Ganesh and gorge yourself!

The Faudie's Futzings
As I mentioned in the previous section, I added pistachios after finding them in the recipe on Bharathi's blog. Otherwise, I didn't really futz with this one too much because it was such unchartered territory for me.

Since this recipe was my first chance to work with besan, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when toasting it. I was expecting something warm and nutty, but I either had old besan (I'll admit that I bought two years ago and had never opened it) or burned it when trying to roast it because the aroma wasn't terribly appealing. Maybe the smell was just so counter to what I'd expected that my mind decided it smelled bad.

DK, the authoress of ChefInYou.com, provides great tips throughout her recipe, including this very important one: "The chickpea flour should be warm and not cool. We require the mixture it to be warm since this warmness will help the sugar to melt a bit thereby binding the flour--enough to bind it into ladoos." Additionally, she includes a troubleshooting guide with the recipe for those of us who have problems forming the ladoo.

Such as me. For even though I'd read this tip before preparing my ladoos, I think I might have let the "dough" cool too much because I had a hell of a time getting the suckers to adhere and not crumble apart in my hands. My "dough" was a bit on the chalky side, but I found enough brute force got the things to clump.

Oh, if you're curious, Gentle Reader, I didn't garnish my ladoos. I wasn't going that far with 'em since I was making them for my Saturday yoga class attendees and had other things to do that day. Maybe next time.

Despite the funky aroma my toasting besan had, the ladoos turned out to be damn tasty. With the help of the almonds and pistachios--and maybe the toasting 'o the flour--the balls had the nutty flavor I'd expected with just a touch of sweetness to satisfy. The boys both found them tasty, as did a number of my regular class attendees. In fact, one of my regulars even asked me for the recipe, which I couldn't remember in specifics at the time. Bad me.

If you're curious to try some mithai but don't want to wait until Pancha Ganapati 2010 to whip up some treats for dear Ganesh, give these babies a shot. You don't have to heat up your kitchen, and if you've had a stressful day, squeezing the ladoo into shape can be a great way to release some of that tension.

Om gam ganapati namah, y'all!