Modak

Why must the water be boiling?

Rice flour has no gluten, and the only thing that can make it pliable is gelatinised starch. Water at a rolling boil bursts the starch granules and turns them into a paste that behaves like a dough, and water that is merely warm will not. Tip the flour in off the heat, all at once, stir straight away, then leave it covered so the trapped steam finishes the job. Dough made with anything cooler cracks the moment you try to pleat it.

Why does the dough have to be kneaded hot?

It stiffens as it cools and stops taking a shape at all. Knead it the moment it is bearable, dipping your fingers in cold water between goes if it burns. Five minutes of that gives a dough that will stretch thin without splitting. Keep it under a damp cloth throughout and work on one ball at a time, because the rest will dry out within a few minutes of being left in the open air.

How do you shape a modak without a mould?

Press the ball into a cup between thumb and fingers, thinning the rim until it is almost translucent while leaving the base a little thicker. Pinch the pleats one at a time all the way round, evenly spaced, before any filling goes in. Then fill, draw the pleats together and twist the tip closed. A mould is quicker and gives a tidier result, and there is no shame in one; hand-pleated modak simply have thinner shells.

Why do my modak crack while steaming?

Either the dough dried out before it reached the steamer, or the shell was pressed unevenly and a thin patch split as the filling expanded inside. Overfilling causes it too. Keep every shaped modak under a damp cloth until the last one is ready. A little steam escaping through a hairline crack does no harm to the taste, though it does let the sweetness leak away.

What is the difference between steamed and fried modak?

The shell, and everything that follows from it. Ukadiche modak has a rice flour shell, is steamed and is eaten warm on the day it is made. The fried kind uses a wheat flour pastry, keeps for a week and carries far more fat. Both share the same coconut and jaggery filling. How much that difference amounts to across the mithai counter is set out in calories in Indian sweets, and on the same logic a griddled puran poli beats anything that comes out of a kadhai.

Can the filling and the shell be made ahead?

The filling, yes: three days in the refrigerator, and it is easier to handle cold. The dough, no. It has to be made, kneaded and shaped in one continuous stretch, so the sensible plan is to cook the coconut the day before and start the dough only once you are ready to sit down and pleat. Steamed modak are at their best within a few hours and go hard overnight, though a quick resteam brings them most of the way back. Puttu uses steamed rice flour to a completely different end, and what steaming does to a recipe's numbers is one of the comparisons the culinary nutrition course draws out.