Til-gudh Laddoo (Sesame Balls)

This is wintertime staple in Bharat - all the way from the region that is now known as Pakistan in the west to the easternmost part of the ‘hot dusty plains’, and from the lower Himalayas in the north to southern India.

All seasons, whether we see them as friendly or not, bring with them foods that are friendly for us.

Sesame is especially good for people who are thin and have a rather small built and those who are above 50. In season, it helps us all, regardless of body type and the stage of life!

This is a classic example of the key teaching of Ayurveda: to remain healthy, we should eat what nature gives us - seasonal, local, fresh.

In traditional recipes, you cook the jaggery until it starts caramelising and reaches a consistency for being able to bind the sesame. For me, the jaggery doesn’t always reach the right consistency, so I came up with an easy way to do the binding job: using tahini (sesame paste).

Use unhulled sesame and tahini from unhulled sesame seeds for getting the most nutritional value. Use any dark brown sugar - jaggery powder, muscavado sugar, panela or coconut sugar. The darker, the better, because it will have more flavour and more minerals.

Start with the best ingredients and make the laddoos with love and they will turn out well.

For all those like me, who miss the laddoos prepared with so much love (and magical abilities), and those who asked me for the recipe, here it is:

• Organic unhulled white or black sesame: 250 g
• Organic tahini made with unhulled sesame: start with 3 heaped tbsp
• Jaggery powder or any other dark brown sugar: start with 100g

Steps

Gently roast the sesame on low to medium heat in a heavy, thick bottomed pan for 20-30 minutes. Stir from time to time and let the sesame cool down on the pan after switching the heat off. Grind the sesame coarsely once it has cooled down completely.

In a large bowl, mix ground sesame with the tahini and jaggery powder with a spoon. Add more tahini as needed. Do a taste check for sweetness. In my experience, it’s best to have the sweet taste very subtle, just for it to provide a background for the taste of roasted sesame to shine.

You will need some time and patience (and space in the bowl) to make sure that the tahini is well distributed and no clumps remain. I do this step with a spoon. Once the mix looks like it is ready to be made into balls, I use my hands. Make sure your nails are trimmed! I also remove my ring to do this step.

Take a small handful of the mix and gently press it together and roll into a ball. If you use too much force, the laddoos will fall apart.

If they don’t come together, you can add some more tahini. If you add too much, the laddoos will become too soft and will not retain their shape.

Remember, the food you choose to eat becomes a part of you and also carries its energies into you. When you choose to buy organically grown products, you are choosing reverence for the land they have been grown on and hopefully respectful working conditions and fair earnings for the farmers and all others involved in bringing the product to you.

This is one of the reasons I love to buy products from the Isha Foundation. I feel that their products are better quality (even when not being certified organic) than organic products from other sources.

Try their jaggery and sesame!