Veggie Modak

Veggie Modak is a special dish which I had prepared in Modakustav 2019. This dish was prepared by using 21 vegetables and some spicy ingredients. It’s a nutritious and healthy dish but little bit spicy one.

I had bagged third prize for this recipe. So, here goes the Veggie Modak recipe. Do try it out…

Preparation Time – 1 Hour 15 Mins

Cook Time – 15 mins

Total Time – 1 hour 30 mins

Ingredients:

• Cauliflower
• Sponge Gourd
• Sweet Corn
• Carrot
• Pumpkin (Lal Bhopala)
• Sweet Potato (Ratale)
• Cabbage (Kobi)
• Ridge Gourd (Shirale / Dodke)
• Snake Gourd (Padval)
• Raw banana
• Potato
• Capsicum
• Elephant Foot Yam (Suran)
• Long beans (Chavali)
• Air Potato (Karanda)
• Bottle Gourd (Dudhi Bhopla)
• Beetroot
• Ivy Gourd (Tondli / Tendli)
• French Beans / Cluster Beans
• Green Peas (Matar)
• Tomato
• 1/2 inch ginger
• 5/6 green chillies
• 1 bowl coriander leaves
• 2 teaspoon chilly powder
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin powder
• 1 teaspoon coriander powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 2 pinch asafoetida
• 2 bowl Wheat flour
• 2 teaspoon ghee (optional)
• Oil for frying purpose
• Water as required
• Salt to taste

Serves:  8 persons (2/3 for each person)

Directions / Procedure:

The following procedure consists of four processes which includes preparing the veggie stuffing for modak, preparing dough, process of making modaks and process of frying the modaks.

A. Process to make veggie stuffing for modaks

1. First clean and wash the vegetables in water, then cut it in any shape and keep aside.
2. In a pressure cook, boil all vegetables together except tomato till two whistles.
3. After cooling down the pressure cooker, take out the boiled veggies and mash all together in a bowl and keep aside.
4. Make the paste of green chillies, ginger and coriander leaves.
5. Heat kadai or non-stick deep pan on low flame and add 2 teaspoons ghee and add mustard seed and cumin seeds, fry them till crackles. Then add pinch of asafoetida, saute for 1 minutes.
6. Add finely chopped tomato, saute till tomato becomes soft and oil start separating from the tomato mixture
7. Now add red chilli powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder and coriander powder, mix it well, saute the mixture for 2-3 minutes.
8. Add mashed boiled veggies in above mixture, add salt to taste. Stir all very well and cover it with lid for few minutes. Cook till it becomes little bit dry.
9. Here your modak stuffing is ready, keep this mixture aside for cooling.

B. Process to prepare dough (outer cover of modak)

1. In mixing bowl / big deep plate, take Wheat flour, add hot oil and salt to taste. Mix everything very well. Now slowly add water in mixture and knead the mixture properly. Knead the mixture till oil and water completely absorbed by the dough.

2. While kneading makes ensure that the dough should be smooth and soft. Cover the dough with lid and keep aside for at least 10 minutes.

3. Check the softness of dough, if dough is very hard and dry then add little amount water, again knead the dough properly.

4. After that pour remaining oil on dough (if required add little extra oil) and again knead the dough very well.

5. Now your soft dough is ready for making the Modak.

C. Process to make the modaks

1. Take the lemon size dough and roll it on dusted rolling board. Make small puri / roll of dough.
2. Fill the veggie mixture in centre of the roll of dough.
3. Using hand finger, pinch the outer side of the disc of dough little bit and make pleat. Like this, roll the disc in round shape, make pleats at nearby distance like ½ inch.
4. Carefully rolled the filled dough disc round on hand and softly bring all the edges i.e. pleat together and then joined, make the top shape pointed and remove the extra portion of dough if any.
5. Make all remaining modak like this way and here your making process of modak is completed. Now next step is to fry the Modak.

D. Process to fry the modaks in oil or ghee

1. Heat the oil or ghee in a deep-frying pan / kadai on medium flame gas.
2. Start frying 3-4 modaks at one time.
3. When frying from down side, in between splash some oil over the top side. It cooks little bit from that side then flip the modak and fry it from other side. Fry the modak till reddish golden brown from all sides.
4. Remove the modak from oil and keep it on kitchen tissue paper.
5. Here your Veggie Modaks are ready now for Naivaidya/ Prasada.

Tips / suggestions:

• Add any vegetable as per your choice except Karela
• Add or adjust more spice ingredients like cumin powder, coriander powder, chilli powder.
• Add garlic paste is optional

Photos for reference: