Peanut Laddus are one of my childhood favorites, the ingredients that goes in are almost the same as peanut chikki that we all must have relished as kids. There is another reason why I love it, Jaggery and Peanut have very high nutritive value, it helps in treating iron deficiency anemia, jaggery is known to increase the hemoglobin count in the blood. Since I keep fighting anemia, all these home made goodies with natural health boosters help me recuperate the iron level in my body. Now it's my 3 year old's fav too so it makes more sense to make these batches of laddus regularly, I feel very happy when she asks for the home made sweets than those highly sugar coated chocolates.
I casually posted an old pic of this laddu on my instagram account last week and the amount of love that I received is so overwhelming and I am really humbled by the generosity and support. So I made these laddus again and managed to click some decent pics to upload the recipe here. This is for all those followers who messaged and commented to ask for the recipe. Thank you all :-)
I have always spoken about how good a cook my mother is, she always has these perfect measurements, I follow her recipe to the T and the result never fails me. Here is the recipe to make shenga/peanut laddu. This makes about 25 medium sized laddus. You can store it for upto 2 weeks in an air tight jar but who am I kidding, we finish it within 2-3 days :-) It's relatively an easy recipe, once you get the jaggery syrup right the laddus come out perfect. (check notes for tips on jaggery syrup)
Ingredients:
1/2 kg Peanut
1/2 kg powdered Jaggery
1 cup desiccated Coconut
1 tbsp Ghee
1 tsp Cardamom powder
1/2 cup water
Method:
1. Dry roast the peanut on low flame, peel the skin and pulse it to a coarse mixture.
2. Heat ghee in a pan and roast the desiccated coconut until they turn brown.
3. Add water and powdered jaggery in a thick bottomed pan, Cook on medium flame until the jaggery dissolves completely and starts to boil. Lower the flame and check for 1 thread consistency jaggery syrup. (See notes for tips).
4. Once the jaggery syrup reaches the right consistency, turn off the flame and add in peanut mixture, cardamom powder and the roasted coconut. Mix everything well and let it sit for 5 minutes.
5. Apply water on your palm and make equal sized balls. Be careful while handling the mixture as it can be very hot and scald your palm.
6. Store in an airtight jar up to two weeks at room temperature.
Notes:
1. Do not leave the syrup to boil without checking as it can get done fairly quickly. Keep checking for the consistency once it starts boiling.
2. Take a little water in a plate and put a drop of syrup, it should let you make a soft ball of it, if it dissolves in the water, continue to boil it check frequently. At this stage the syrup becomes thicker faster so keep an eye on it.
3. The other way to check is to dip a wooden spatula in the syrup and blow it cool a bit and touch it with forefinger and pull it apart slowly between thumb and forefinger, a single thread is formed that doesn't break.
4. You can make fine powder of peanut if you do not like the peanut chunks in it.
