Now coming to karthigai deepam, according to wiki this festival has its reference in Ahananooru, and this belongs to Sangam literature which dates back to 200 B.C. to 300 A.D. It’s one of the ancient festival celebrated. There is a legendary story associated with that, or instead, I should say I know only these two stories.
The first story: When Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu fought among themselves to know who is greater, Lord Shiva appeared and said whoever finds my head and feet are the greatest. Both went for finding, and they realized their mistake and let go of their ego. Then Lord Shiva appeared as a pillar of fire, and it is believed that he appeared in Tiruvannamalai hills and that is celebrated as karthigai deepam. The second story: Karthigai deepam was the day when Goddess Parvati combined all the six faces of Lord Karthikeya.
Back to recipe now. For this karthigai deepam recipe, we need nel(paddy grains) pori. It is a simple recipe, but the critical thing is the jaggery consistency. Instead of adding tips in the notes section, I added them along with the steps. Ingredients:
Nel Pori / Arisi Pori – 4 cups Dry ginger powder / Sukku – 2 tsps Elaichi powder – 2 tsp Powdered Jaggery – 1.25 cups Water – ½ cup Rice flour – ¼ cup or as required to make balls.
Steps:
Add the Elaichi and ginger powder to the pori and keep in a wide plate.
Heat a heavy bottomed vessel and add water and the jaggery.
Let it melt and keep mixing it till it reaches the soft ball consistency or Ketti Kambi Padham as we say in Tamil. It took me around 15 minutes. Checking the consistency: Keep a small bowl of water. After 10 minutes when it starts to bubble – begin to check for the consistency.
Drop a small amount of jaggery syrup in the water. It should not lose its shape and spread out. It should settle down, and you should be able to make a small ball out of it, and it should be soft. You should be able to press it.
Now turn off the heat and slowly pour this mixture over the pori and mix it gradually. Please be careful while mixing the jaggery and the pori. If you let the jaggery syrup sit, you will lose the jaggery consistency, but at the same time, you need to mix it with the pori. If you can get help at this stage, please opt for it, if not do it slowly. Now rub your palm generously with rice flour and start making round balls. As required keep applying the rice flour and shape the balls. Again this ball making process should be done when the syrup is medium hot if not it becomes difficult. Rice flour does help a lot.
📖 Recipe
