This, being the month of Christmas, a holiday celebrated among 160 of the 195 countries that make up this planet, I’ve decided to do a monthly installment of how different countries around the world celebrate this special holiday in their kitchens and feature their signature holiday meals. Some may be sides, some may be mains, maybe a dessert or two, some may be a complete dinner. Only time will tell by which country my girls have randomly pulled out of Santa’s hat.
Welcome to Comoros, a “close” but unplanned regional jaunt to an archipelago off the eastern coast of Africa, smack dab between the tips of Mozambique and Madagascar after my Chicken Yassa of Senegal. I was kind of flying blind for this recipe. The main recipe I found was to cook ground rice until “well-cooked”. Okay? Like ground my own rice...or use rice flour? How long does “well-cooked” mean? This isn’t steak! Most recipes I found were like this and I can kind of appreciate that. Before I started doing this blog, one of my biggest hang-ups was: I don’t measure, I don’t follow a clock, per se, how am I going to translate dishes. It takes a real concerted effort to develop a recipe for public use.
I poked around the internet to find more recipes (most were widely panned) and found, generally, that I should forego rice flour as it would be too gummy. Also, some of the remaining gritty kernels of raw rice would help mouth feel and prevent the little ball from sticking to the roof of your mouth like peanut butter. Much like semolina’s function on my daughter’s bread. I still really don’t know how long I should actually cook this ground rice in ghee. There was nary a difference from minute 20 to minute 60. I say go longer as it increases the likelihood of cooking more rice and further concentrating the buttery content of the ghee. If you’ve never heard of ghee, it is clarified butter. Think of it as “the crisco of butter”. The recipe I found had just a bit too much black pepper. I want an essence of pepper, not a jolting bombardment. So, I’ve reduced the amount in my recipe below.
Finally, I found these to be somewhat similar to Japanese mochi. In fact, if these were surrounded by ice cream and topped with a strawberry sauce, they would be absolutely phenomenal. So what do they taste like? Sweet, spiced, different - in a totally eye-opening, amazing way. This is something I never would have eaten (or tried to make) without taking on this blog. I keep being pleasantly surprised on my culinary adventure and I hope you are as well.
Ladu
You will need a spice grinder for this recipe. If you don’t have one, you can use a mini-prep, or a mortar and pestle if you have lots of time on your hands.
¾ cup of uncooked basmati rice
⅓ cup of ghee
¼ tsp of ground cardamom
¾ cup confectioner’s sugar
1.5 tsp of ground black pepper
In a small non-stick skillet, toast the rice until fragrant. Pour into a bowl and let cool. After the rice has cooled completely, transfer ⅓ of the rice to a spice grinder and grind the rice until broken down. Most rice will turn to powder, but some tiny specks of rice will remain - that’s ok. Transfer the ground rice to a separate bowl and repeat the process 2 more times with the remaining toasted rice.
While you are grinding the rice, melt the ghee over medium-low heat. When the ghee has fully melted, carefully stir in the ground rice, absorbing all of the melted butter. Reduce the heat to low and, with a rubber spatula, give the cooking rice a good stir every 10-15 minutes until the melted ghee nearly stops bubbling. This will take about an hour to 75 minutes. Just monitor more closely as you near the end of the provided cooking time. The rice will still be somewhat gritty - this is okay
After the rice has cooked, stir in the cardamom and a pinch of table salt to fully incorporate. Transfer the rice mixture to a large plate to cool. Then, mix the sugar and black pepper in a bowl.
Once the cooked, seasoned rice mixture has fully cooled, transfer to the bowl of peppered sugar and mix until fully combined. Then, grab a heaping tablespoon and roll the mixture in the palms of your hands until they form little balls.
Serve immediately or place in an airtight container.
_____________________________________________ Copyright 2020, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.