( Sweet balls made from peanuts and jaggery - a simple fasting recipe.).

I love peanuts! Like in most Indian homes, I dry roast the peanuts and store them in an air-tight container. They are always ready to be eaten with ‘gul’ (jaggery) or for making ‘danyacha kut’ ( roasted peanut powder). Another thing I like to do with them is to make peanut laddoo - ‘danyache ladoo’ as Maharashtrians call them! This is a very easy fasting recipe that can be made in very little time. The only time-consuming step in this recipe is roasting the peanuts and peeling those. However, if you have the roasted peanuts ready, as I do, it takes very little time to make these laddoos!

Ingredients

• 2 cups peanuts

• 1.5 cup jaggery grated

• 1 tbsp ghee

Method

• Dry roast the peanuts on a low/medium flame, stirring at regular intervals to ensure that all peanuts are roasted properly. Roasted peanuts will have a dark brown color and will be crunchier than raw peanuts. Make sure all peanuts are properly roasted.

• Cool them down and then rub them between the palms of your hands. The skin on them will start to peel off. Discard this skin.

• Transfer the peanuts to a grinder jar and grind coarsely. You can use the pulse option on your grinder to make sure you don’t overdo the grinding. Keep aside.

• In a thick bottom pan, add ghee and jaggery and heat this mixture on a low flame till the jaggery melts. Keep stirring to make sure jaggery doesn’t stick to the bottom.

• Add the peanut mixture to this and mix well.

• Cool the mixture slightly. When the mixture is warm, grease your palm with clarified butter (ghee) and roll the mixture into balls.

PEANUT LADOOS ARE READY TO SERVE !!

Notes -

• Heat the jaggery just a little till it melts. Do not overheat it before adding the peanuts.

• Roll the laddoos when the mixture is a little warm. The jaggery in this mixture may harden a bit after cooling completely, making it a little difficult to roll laddoos.

• You can add cardamom powder to these laddoos if you like. I never add it though.

• These can be stored in an air-tight container at room temperature for 8-10 days.