Mavu Laddu (Maa Laddu/Payatham Maavu laddoo)

Mavu Laddu (Maa Laddu)


As far as I have seen most grandmothers of people of my generation have been stay at home ladies. I do not like to use the word housewife or homemaker because I think they both understate the amount of work they did. Anyway, reason I talk about grandmothers is that usually they make such yummy dishes that are quite traditional as well. Very often there is a medicinal value attached to these dishes and sometimes they can be pure indulgence. Either way, they taste great. I have always wondered if I would be able to churn out dishes like my grandmothers and mother. My maternal grandmother would make Mavu Laddu (Mavu is flour and laddu refers to a sweet ball). She would normally use besan (chickpea flour) but sometimes use mung dal flour as my husband prefers the latter. They would literally melt in the mouth and you could easily lose count of how many you have had. I am now faced with an enormous task of using up stuff from my pantry as the shelves have begun to sag now and I know that this is the limit. I am hoping that in the next 6-8 weeks I manage to clear out most of it and one such ingredient was roasted mung dal flour. I also had half a packet of butter sitting on the counter (softening as I was hoping to make some biscuits the previous day). When you put these two things together, comes the wonderful laddu. Quick call to Chennai to clarify the recipe and there came the yummy laddus. It is not difficult to make them and does not involve non stop stirring etc. but the hard part is making the balls while the mixture is still hot. They will not hold together once cooled too much. Despite the fact that I am used to ‘not entirely white collar’ job, it was quite hot. Anyway, the ghee would heal the wounds :)

1 ½ cups mung dal flour
1 ½ cups sugar
½ cup ghee, melted
Few cashew nuts

Heat little ghee and roast the flour until raw smell goes. I had bought roasted flour but still chose to roast it to wake it up and be sure

Heat couple of spoons of ghee and fry the cashews until golden. Melt the remaining ghee

Grind together the sugar and the flour in a mixie/food processor

Add this to the ghee cashew mixture and gradually add ghee and keep mixing until it gets to a consistency where if you make a ball with some of the mixture it holds firmly. Ofcourse a little bit more ghee will only make it even more yummy. Note that the mixture should not be on fire while carrying out this process

Bare the heat and make laddu of desired size, cool and enjoy them!