India: Sesame Seed Ladoo

Krishna Patel

Sesame Seed Ladoo: India

The sesame seed ladoo which was passed down by my grandparents has been in our culture for many years. The sesame seed ladoo is shaped like a sphere and is very sweet. We make this food only once per year and that is on the 14^th of January which is when we celebrate a Hindu festival known as Makar Sankranti. During this festival, everyone in India flies a kite with their friends and family. This festival teaches us that we should apply all the different types of colors of the kite into our life. The colors represent that we should fill our life with happiness and remove problems as well as negative characteristics such as greediness and jealousy. Another moral to learn from this festival is that the holder of the tread should be strong to not let go and we relate this to god holding the tread and if we don’t follow god’s path or do work for god, then he might let go of the string anytime. Now apart from this festival, this food also has a really interesting story. In the old times, we used to stuff money inside these sesame seed ladoo and give them to family members, relatives and friends. This meant that we would give a part of our wealth without showing it off to others, not letting the person know that it was you who gave this amount of money and giving it without any expectations. Since many people would give each other sesame seed ladoo that looked very similar, nobody would know who it came from in the end. The sweetness from this food also represented taking away the family members
’
problems and starting from the beginning with a better approach. This tradition is still being followed by many people including my own family. The sesame seed ladoo is also one of my favorite foods to eat and I’ve enjoyed eating it since childhood. The sweetness and crunchiness of the sesame seed ladoo will get you addicted in no time and every time I eat these, my parents always have to force me to stop eating. It’s also exciting to eat these sesame seed ladoo because if you follow the tradition, you get some of these sesame seed ladoos from families, relatives and friends and every time you eat one from somebody else, it will always taste a bit different. The only disadvantage to the sesame seed ladoo is that it’s only made once per year but the taste makes up for the long wait.      

THE RECIPE

·         Ingredients

• 1cup of sesame seed
• ½ cup of jaggery
• ¼ cup of butter
• ¼ cup of peanuts, almond nuts and cashew nuts mixed
• ¼ cup of vegetable oil

·         Procedure

1.      Heat the butter in a frying pan until it’s warm and completely melted.

2.      Add ½ cup of jaggery in the frying pan with the butter until it’s fully melted as well. You should see a dark brown color and bubbles.

3.      Next grind all the nuts and add them in the frying pan. Also add the 1 cup of sesame seeds.

4.      Let it cook and mix all the ingredients for around 5 minutes.

5.      After let it cool until you are able to touch it but don’t let it cool too much because you will need to make balls out of the mixture.

6.      Add vegetable oil to your hands and make balls out of the mixture inside the frying pan. The reason for the vegetable oil is so the mixture doesn’t stick to your hand. They should be the shape of timbits and a little bigger than them. You should be able to create around 15-20 of those balls.

7.      Let the sesame seed ladoo cool down and ENJOY. J

Sources: All credit goes to my parents for sharing this information.