Dry Fruits Laddu (Dink Laadu/Antina Unde)

There are many dishes that are prepared specially for lactating mothers. Many of these dishes have loads of ghee – it was a common belief that ghee which gives the necessary fats/calories and overcomes weakness and some other healthy ingredients. One very popular preparation is this dry fruits laddu – Dink Laadu or Dinkache Laadu(Marathi) or Antina Unde(Kannada). These laddus can be eaten by anyone, not just lactating mothers. They are very delicious.
Dink is the edible gum.  We found this edible gum in Indian store here. Normally the dink laddus have dry coconut, poppy seeds(khus khus) and dry fruits. We used all kinds of dry fruits that we had. Usually Kharik/Kharuk(dried dates) is used in this recipe, but since we did not have that, we used normal dates.

Ingredients:

1 cup jaggery
1/2 cup dry coconut (kopra/kobbari) (we used desiccated coconut)
1/2 cup water
2 tea spns ghee
1/8 tea spn nutmeg powder
1/8 tea spn cardamom powder
1 date cut into tiny pieces
1 tbl spn raisins
1 tbl spn edible gum(dink/anTu)
2 tbl spn cashews chopped into small pieces
2 tbl spns walnuts chopped into small pieces
2 tbl spns almonds chopped into small pieces
2 tbl spns poppy seeds (khus khus)
Method:
Dry roast coconut till it tuns slightly brownish. Take it out on a clean plate.
Heat ghee and add edible gum. The gum puffs up like small balloons. With a spoon take out on a plate, leaving behind any remaining ghee in the pan.
Add the cashews, almonds and walnuts, fry till they start to turn brown. Add poppy seeds and fry till they pop. Add raisins and dates and fry for few moments. Take out on same plate.
Bring to boil 1/2 cup water, add jaggery and cook till it forms syrup. To know whether the syrup is done, take some water on a plate and put a drop of syrup on it. If it sits like a crystal, syrup is done.
Add all the fried ingredients and mix well. Add nutmeg and cardamom powder. Mix well.
Make laddus when the mixture is still warm. Apply some ghee to palms before trying to hold the warm mixture. If the mixture dries out, sprinkle some water and heat it for few seconds.
Makes about 12 laddus
PS: If you are calories conscious, reduce the quantity of ghee and use just enough to fry the ingredients.
Pictorial:


In the below picture, the crystals on the right are edible gum pieces.




Below picture shows puffed up edible gum.

Categories: Food