Modhagam

Festival recipes, Indian gluten-free recipes, Indian Sweets, Naivedyam Recipes, Saatvik food recipes, Traditional recipes, Vinayagar Chathurthi recipes

This is my first post in the second year of blogging. On this first anniversary I thank WordPress team for their fantastic support, readers & fellow bloggers for their continuing support and my family, relatives & friends for their kind cooperation, invaluable assistance & honest reviews. I also thank Lord Ganesha by posting the most appropriate recipe for Modhagam that we usually offer to Him on the festival of Ganesh Chathurthi. I have always been delighted to share our heirloom recipes in this space, and now I share a new method that I found very helpful for making soft, smooth dough for modhagam.

img_01791 Modhagam
Modhagam

Modhagam Recipe:

My childhood friend’s grandmother used to offer delicious modhagam to the pillaiyar on chathurthi thithi of every month, and I still remember her melt-in-mouth modhagam with sweet fillings. So I would prefer to set her soft dumplings as a benchmark for my recipe. Here I have posted modhagam of different shapes with various fillings so that you can try the one you like the most for the upcoming Ganesh Chathurthi. Let’s look into the recipe for modhagam :

modhagam Modhagam
Modhagam with different pooranam

Dough making: 

It is the trickiest part of this recipe as we all like to relish soft silky modhagam rather than hard or cracked dumpling. So it is required to use hot boiling water to make the perfect dough. But it is quite difficult to handle the heat and knead the dough without any lumps. Hence I use hand mixer with kneading attachment (as shown below) that comes in handy while mixing & kneading the hot dough with no hassle.

img_0142 Modhagam
Hand held kneader mixer

Ingredients:

  1. Rice flour – 1 cup ( I used store-bought flour)
  2. Water – 1 to 1½ cup
  3. Salt – Â¼ tsp
  4. Sesame oil – 1 tsp

Cooking Method:

  • Heat a pan with water.
  • Add salt & oil into the boiled water.
  • In a large mixing bowl add rice flour.
  • Pour hot water over rice flour and mix them using hand mixer (at medium speed) until smooth.
  • img_0144 Modhagam
  • img_0145 Modhagam
  • img_0146 Modhagam
  • img_0147 Modhagam

Tips for making the dough:

  1. To avoid the dough becoming sticky, we need to pour water gradually and check its consistency while kneading. For 1 cup of rice flour I used 1 to 1½ cup of water, but you may have to adjust this depending on the water-absorbing quality of rice.
  2. If you do not have hand mixer you can use a wooden spatula for mixing, wrap the dough in a muslin cloth and then knead well so that you don’t have to bear the heat.
dough Modhagam

Sweet & savory fillings (pooranam):

Traditional Bengal gram fillings

First we need to cook Bengal gram (chickpeas or kadalai paruppu) until soft (not mushy) and grind into a powder before adding into jaggery syrup.

chickpeas Modhagam
Modhagam with kadalaiparuppu pooranam

Nutty sesame fillings

We have to powder the sesame seeds (ellu) after washing & dry roasting them and then mix them with powdered jaggery in medium flame.

sesame Modhagam
Modhagam with ellu pooranam

Healthy green gram fillings 

We need to roast, pressure cook and mash the green gram lentils (moong bean/ paasi payaru) before adding jaggery syrup.

greengram Modhagam
Modhagam with paasi paruppu pooranam

How to stuff the pooranam using modhagam mould:

modagam-1 Modhagam

Delicious coconut fillings

We can grind the coconut pieces into coarse powder using mixer grinder rather than using coconut grater or scraper.

coconut Modhagam
Modhagam with thengai pooranam
modagam-2 Modhagam
How to use the modhagam mould

Savory black gram fillings 

First we have to soak black gram lentils (ulundhu) and then grind into a coarse paste (without adding water) along with green chillies & ginger; you can steam or pressure cook this lentil mixture; cooked lentils can be refrigerated for an hour (as it helps to loosen them up nicely) before adding into the tempering.

blackgram Modhagam
Modhagam with ulundhu pooranam

Tips for making pooranam:

  1. Adding grated coconut into any filling whether sweet or savory helps to enhance the flavour.
  2. We need to grease our hands and moulds while forming the dough into desired shape.

Steaming modhagam:

We can grease the steam plate (or line the steam plate with wet cloth) and steam them for 5 to 7 minutes.

  • img_0133 Modhagam
  • img_0177 Modhagam

You can also refer to my other recipes for Vinayagar Chathurthi here.

134 comments on “Modhagam”Add yours →

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      1. I think you may have to open my blog in the Reader, and then go to Modhagam post and click on sharing button to reblog it. Hope this may work for you, lets see.

          1. Yes, this is how reblog works, it will show the first few lines followed by a link to my post.

  4. Pingback: Poomparuppu Sundal – Megala's Kitchen

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  9. I love modagam – miss this. I should try it. But the Sri Lankan version is a bit different. I should post that one day. By the way, it looks to pretty made with that mold

  16. Wow. Superb Megala. You must be having lots of patience to try different varieties of Modhagam at one shot. They looks so delicious. Happy Anniversary as well. 🙂 Keep going 🙂

  19. Pingback: I made Modak! | My life into making

  30. I just came across your site, and I must say it’s amazing. Here I am sitting well past midnight, going through your posts and drooling over the images. I’m hungry now 😉

  33. Congrats Megs – your cooking is a work of art, treat for the eyes and a torture for my tummy 😉 😛 Look forward to more such delightful tortures 😀

  35. Congratulations Megala on your first year! The Modhagam remind me of the pierogies I make only we do the half circle shape. I love the molds you have! I have never seen them before.

  39. Happy blog anniversary, dear Meg ???
    Thanks for sharing the recipe, I am planning to make them for chaturthi this time ?

  40. Many congratulations Megala on your milestone and first anniversary of blogging ! here’s to many more, keep rocking!! Love modagams they are my all time favorite !

  41. Congratulations for your first blogging anniversary! Here you have given so many varieties of Modaks, the ones with sesame, green gram and black gram fillings are new to me. Thank you for sharing these recipes 🙂

  44. Happy anniversary! I’ve never tried indian cousine? What do you suggest I try first? Would you mind check out my page? Maybe we can follow each other 😀
    Love, Mimi
    blushydarling.com

  48. Happy blogging anniversary Megala. The modaks look so delicious. I didn’t know that we get a mould to shape the modaks. Will have to look out for them! Thanks for sharing this recipe in time for the festival:)

  55. Happy anniversary Megala. I’m celebrating my two years anniversary tomorrow as well. More grease to our elbow. Love always.?

  58. Happy Blog anniversary Megala. Wish you all the very best. Perfect post. Modaks are looking scrumptious and very tempting.Will definitely try one of these.

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