Kare Undo ( Sev- Popped Rice Ladoo)

Kare Undo is a jaggery based ladoo. I made slight variations to my Layee pitta undo and made this ladoo. I also referred the cook book written by Jaya V Shenoy. Kare Undo is commonly made for Ganesh Chaturthi.  My mother never made this laddo . So I always wanted to give it a try. Making this ladoo is really time consuming but I knew that the end result would taste awesome. I was really happy with the results and it brought back so many memories :-)

Ingredients:

• Cashew nut- 1/3 cup
• Laaye Pitto/Popped rice (Coarse powder variety) - 1 1/2 cups
• Dark Jaggery/Antu Bella - 1 cup
• Black Sesame seeds- 1 Tbsp
• Cardamom Powder- 1/2 tsp
• Ghee - 1 tsp+ extra for greasing 

For Sev (Karo):

• Besan (Chickpea Flour)- 3/4 cup
• Melted butter- 1 tsp
• Ghee*- For frying

*I used a mixture of oil and ghee to cut down the fat.

Procedure:

The coarse powder of Popped rice looks like this.

First step is to prepare the Sev: Sieve chickpea flour in a bowl. All melted butter to it.

Now slowly add water little at a time to get a dough. Now the next step would be to grease the mould in which we are going to make the sev. I used this-

At the bottom of the mould we need to add the plate, which has many tiny holes throughout (use the plate with slight bigger holes).
Now put the dough into the greased mould and then start rotating it in clockwise direction in the hot Ghee (or oil-ghee mixture) directly, until there is enough room for the noodles to get fried evenly. To stop the noodles from coming, rotate in opposite direction.

Fry the noodles on a medium flame on either sides, until the sev turns crispy and slight brown. Take out the sev from the oil and drain the excess oil on a paper towel. 

Karo is ready!! Once it cools down, crush it into small pieces and set in aside.

Now take a big pan and dry roast the sesame seeds until it starts to splutter. Then transfer it to a plate.

In the same pan add little ghee and start roasting the cashew nut pieces until they turn golden brown. Then transfer it to a plate.

In the same pan, start heating the jaggery on a medium flame along with 1/2 cup of water. 

The jaggery I used looked like this (This jaggery is very soft and is specially used to make ladoos, burfi, chikkis. This jaggery gives good binding and has a distinct taste).

The jaggery begins to melt and starts to boil.

Continue heating till the end point. To know the end point, add 1-2 drops of melted jaggery in a small bowl containing water. The jaggery should form a firm drop and it should turn little hard.

Once this consistency is reached, add the roasted cashew nut, Karo (sev), sesame seeds, cardamom powder, ghee and mix quickly. Then add the coarse powder of popped rice and give a good mix until everything comes together. 

Allow the mixture to cool (until you can handle the heat). Remember that the mixture hardens as it cools. So it has to be formed into ladoos as soon as possible.

Once it is ready to handle, take desired amount of the ladoo mixture in your greased hands and make a ladoo. Repeat the same for the rest of the mixture. I made a total of 17 ladoos.
Kare Undo is ready!!

Store them in an air tight container. It stays good for more than a week.