BALLS & DUMPLINGS - LUGDOO
Boondi Lugdoo
Besan 1 cup
Sugar 1-1/2 cups
Yellow food color 1 pinch
Cardamom 5 or 6
Cashew 10
Raisins 10
Cloves 4
Make the sugar syrup first. Add water to the sugar and keep checking the syrup consistency till single thread falls from a ladle. Immediately remove from fire. Add yellow food color to it. To make boondi, add water to the besan so that the paste resembles dosa batter. It should not be too watery (boondi will be flat) or too thick (boondi will be hard). If you have a ladle with holes in it, pour the batter in it and fry it in oil at medium high heat. As the boondi comes out, drain it on a paper towel and drop it into the sugar syrup. After finishing all the boondis, add the fried cashews, raisins, cloves and cardamoms in the syrup. Let the boondi soak for say an hour to hour and a half. Stir occassionally. Try shaping it into balls. If the boondi is still crisp try after it starts soaking. Makes 15 small lugdoo.
Krsna Lugdoos
1 pound Chickpea (besan) flour
Water as needed
Ghee for frying
2 lbs. Sugar
1 pint Water
½ lb. Dried figs
1 lb. Raisins
½ lb. Chopped walnuts
¼ lb. Candied cherries
Camphor, a good pinch
Make a pasty batter by stirring water into sifted chickpea (gram) flour. Beat out the lumps in this batter, and then stir in more water until you have a thick but liquid batter. Beat up about two inches of ghee (or more) in a fairly deep pan. When the ghee is just beginning to smoke, adjust the heat down to about medium. Have a colander (bowl-strainer) handy which has small holes interspersed around its bottom. Hold this colander above the hot ghee, and pour a small ladle full of batter into it. If the batter is the proper thick-but-liquid consistency it should drip into the ghee, forming into small, drop-shaped noodles. When the ghee has about ½ inch of noodles frying in it, stop dripping them, and stir the noodles to break any up which may be sticking together. If they are browning too fast to cope with, turn the heat down a bit. When the noodles are a rich golden colour and crispy, dip them out with a fine wire-mesh spoon or spoon with holes in it. Drain them for a few seconds above the ghee, and place them in a fair sized pot. Do this repeatedly until you have produced as many noodles as you want. A pound of chick pea flour should produce enough noodles for approximately 30 good-sized sweet balls. You will need to add more ghee periodically as you fry.
When noodles are done, make a sugar syrup in this way: put a quantity of water in a pot. Figure (by volume) 8 parts noodles to 1 part water. In that water put two parts sugar (2 lbs sugar to 1 pint water). Stir this over the heat. Only as the water comes near a boil will all the sugar dissolve. Into this boiling heavy syrup add the dried fruit and nuts. If you have 6 pints of noodles, figure 1 lb. of raisins, ½ pound of chopped dried figs, ½ lb. chopped walnuts, ¼ lb. candied cherries (chopped in quarters or eights). When these fruits have been mixed in, the final addition is crumbled camphor. Liquid camphor-spirit can also be used, because all the alcohol boils off immediately upon hitting the boiling liquid (alcohol has lower boiling point than water.) Plenty of camphor should be used (the first lugdoo I tasted was made under Srila Prabhupada’s personal supervision. When I bit into it the small of camphor shot up my nose very distinctly. The experience was vivid and ecstatic.)
As soon as the camphor is dissolved, pour most of the syrup and all the fruit and nuts over the noodles and stir together. Keep some syrup aside in case more is needed. (If not, use the syrup in making halvah). The noodles should become soft and sticky on the outside, but should remain a bit crisp in the middle. If they don’t appear moist enough to stick together, add more syrup (if they are too soft-mushy - I’m sorry. Next time make less syrup). When the mixture is cooled down (as it cools, it becomes stickier), squeeze into big balls, about 1 ½ inches in diameter. These balls are difficult to roll because of the sticky mixture. I find it best to keep a bowl of water nearby and to rinse my hands after every few balls. When properly made this (along with kachories) is one of Srila Prabhupada’s top favourites.
Mootichur Lugdoo
2 cups gram flour (besan)
2 cups ghee
3/4 cups sugar
2 tbsp. almonds, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. cardamom powder
1/4 tsp. saffron or other yellow/orange color
Mix gram flour with just enough water to make a thick batter. Add color. Heat ghee. Through a sieve, gently place batter drops into the hot ghee. Fry till pink and drain out. Continue till all batter is used. Reserve the fried drops as boondis. Heat sugar with 3/4 cup water and make a sticky syrup of one-thread consistency. Add fried boondis, almonds, cardamom powder and mix well. While still warm, shape the syrup-coated boondis into round lugdoo, and leave till dry.
Rava Lugdoo
Fine rava 2 cups
Sugar 2 cups
Small raisins 2 tbsps
Chopped cashewnuts 2 tbsps
Cardamom powder ½ tsp
Ghee 3 tbsps
Fry the raisins and the cashewnuts in the ghee. Drain and set aside. In the same ghee fry the rava till it darkens a few shades. Transfer to a plate. Put the sugar in a pan with a cup of water. Boil till syrup becomes sticky. Mix in the raisins and the nuts along with the cardamom and the rava. Mix well. When slightly cool to handle, shape into lugdoo and store in an airtight tin when completely cool.
