Kadalai urundai / Peanut balls

Kadalai urundai / peanut ball is a very popular sweet snack in southern part of India. It is just prepared with two main ingredients peanuts and jaggery, also takes very less time and effort to prepare. You can prepare this yummy sweet during karthigai deepam and even for Krishna jeyanthi.

Ingredients:

Yields: around 15 to 20 balls (depends on the size of balls)

• 2 cups – Raw peanuts
• 1 cup – Jaggery ( i used organic dark jaggery)
• 1 / 2 cup - Water
• 2 pinches – Cardamom powder
• Rice flour or ghee or oil to grease your hands

Preparation method:

1. Dry roast peanut for 10 minutes or more over low flame until it turns nutty / crunchy. Allow them to cool completely and remove the skin.
2. Heat a pan, add jaggery powder, cardamom powder and water to immerse, bring it to boil over medium flame and cook until jaggery reaches a consistency of rolling ball. Keep water in a bowl and test the syrup by pouring a few drops in water. Jaggery should not get dissolved immediately and you should be able to form a soft ball as shown in the picture.
3. Take a mixing bowl, add roasted peanuts and pour jaggery syrup over it through strainer (to remove impurities from jaggery), mix well so that jaggery syrup is well coated on peanuts. Allow them to cool and when it is still warm.
4. Grease both your hands with ghee / oil / rice flour and make a tight balls of desired size. Store in an airtight container and enjoy.

Notes:

• Consistency of jaggery is very important for this recipe. As i told you before keep water in a bowl and test the syrup by pouring a few drops in water. Jaggery should not get dissolved immediately and you should be able to form a soft ball.
• Roasting of peanuts is also very important. I used raw peanuts in this recipe, so i have to roast it till it is crunchy. If in case you use pre roasted peanuts, still you have to roast them for few seconds to make fresh and crunchy.
• Make balls when mixture is still warm. If the mixture cools down, then you will not be able to make proper balls. At this point heat the mixture on a low heat for few seconds. The heat will melt the jaggery a little and that helps to make balls.
• You have to grease your hands with either ghee or oil or even with rice flour. In one of video, i saw they used water in their hands and made balls. I have also tried that and it was really helping me to make perfect balls.
• When the balls are made, it would be slightly flexible and once cooled down it will become hard.

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