KARWAR STYLE MADGANE WITH RAJGIRA AND OATS

Madgane is a type of kheer from the Karwari NKGSB cuisine prepared especially during festivals and religious ceremonies. All the ingredients used to prepare this dish being healthy, make it highly nutritious. Here I have added some additional ingredients to it like oats, rajgira flour and dates to make it a bit more nutritious.

Karwar is a coastal city in the South Indian state of Karnataka. Karwari GSB cuisine includes a variety of dishes prepared using coconut and fish. But again this cuisine which hasn’t been so well advertised, has a varied range of vegetarian dishes too. Karwari food has it’s own tongue tickling and mouth watering quality. One such sweet dish is madgane. Prepared by my grandma in Karwar and then by my mom, it’s now been passed down to me.

Here goes the recipe the way my grandma cooked it with my own added small twist without compromising on it’s original taste.

INGREDIENTS :

1/2 cup Chanaa daal

2 cups Water

1/4 cup Oats

1 1/2 cup Fresh grated coconut

1 1/2 cup Jaggery

1 Tbs Rice flour

1 1/2 Tbs Rajgira flour

1 Tsp Cardamom powder

15-20 Cashew nuts (halved & few to be kept aside)

4-5 Dates (chopped into small pieces)

2 Tsp Raisins (few to be kept aside)

1 Tsp Ghee

1/4 Tsp Salt

METHOD :

1. Soak daal in adequate water for about an hour.

2. Wash thoroughly and drain.

3.Take a vessel and in it add the given quantity of daal and water and bring to a boil.

4. When it reaches boiling point, reduce the flame to medium and keep simmering for the daal to cook (do not cover with lid at any stage) stirring occasionally.

5. In the meantime, grind the coconut using water to extract coconut milk by squeezing tightly the ground coconut over a sieve.

6. The first extract will be thick and should be about 3/4 to 1 cup.

7. Repeat this process using less water each time to get more coconut milk which will be comparatively thinner and should be about 2 cups.

8. Check the daal and if it’s almost cooked, add to it the cashew nuts and mix well.

9. Here a little hot water can be added to daal if there’s too less water in it.

10. When daal is completely cooked but not mushy add to it the jaggery, cardamom powder and salt.

11. Stir till jaggery dissolves.

12. Using little of the thin coconut extract make a slurry of the rice and rajgira flours.

13. Add this slurry and all the thinner coconut extract to the daal and bring to a boil stirring constantly.

14. Now add the dates, raisins and the thick coconut extract and again bring to a boil stirring constantly.

15. Switch off the flame now as this shouldn’t be cooked more once the coconut milk has been added.

16. Heat ghee and in it roast the cashew nuts and raisins (which had been kept aside) to garnish the Madgane.

NOTE :

A highly nutritious dish which actually doesn’t need a special occasion to be made! Relish it hot or cold as desired!