Simili / சிமிலி உருண்டை -Ragi flour Laddoo - Healthy and easy diwali sweets - step by step

 

Simili is a ragi sweet ,where jiggery,peanuts and ragi rotis are blended on a stone grinder (aatukkal) using a ulakkai , traditionally. I have seen my grandma and my mom, used to make this traditional sweet since my childhood. This sweet is rich in iron as it has jiggery and ragi flour. It will taste so yummy. When I went to Tirunelveli for vacation, I bugged my mom to prepare this healthy and traditional sweet for me and my sister. Since we didn't have aattukkal at that new house, she showed me the modern version using mixie. Give this healthy sweet instead of cookies to your kids. Let's start a revolution and teach our kids ,our healthy life style. When we were kids, it will be always fun to watch ,how the sweet is milled on a stone grinder :)

 

Ingredients:
1. Ragi flour           -       2 cups
2.Grated jaggery     -        1 to 11/2 cups
3.Peanuts                -        1 cup
4.Sesame seeds       -        1 tbsp. (roasted)
5.Salt                       -         a pinch
6.Water                    -        as required

Method:
Take ragi flour in a mixing bowl, add salt. Now pour water little by little and form a soft dough. Divide the dough into equal sized balls. We got around 9 medium sized balls. Now take a wet wash cloth or a Ziploc bag. Slowly pat the ragi dough into thin rotis. Do for all the other ragi balls too. Cook the ragi rotis on a tawa , till they are just cooked. Don't over cook ,then it will become crisp. We don't need crispy rotis here.

Cook all the rotis similarly and cool them. Usually, mom used to crush the rotis on a stone grinder ( Aattu kal) . Since ,this new house doen't had one, she showed me using mixie. First she made the rotis into pieces and grinded in the mixie to form crumbles. She did in two batches. When she was grinding the second batch, she added roasted peanuts to it and grinded it also.

Now powder the jiggery ,by giving it a pulse in the mixie. I have added 1 cup of jiggery, but you can increase or decrease according to your tastebuds.Traditionally, in a stone grinder, ragi rotis are crushed first and then roasted peanuts are added and at last jaggery is added to the stone grinder. So all the three will be milled by using a ulakkai on the stone grinder. So everything will be milled and blended well.

Take a mixing bowl, add powdered ragi roti, jiggery ,roasted sesame seeds and powdered peanuts. Mix them very well to blend .We can  also pulse the roasted sesame seeds in a blender and add.Start shaping them into balls. Initially it will be not in a good shape, when they are set, we can shape the balls again ,by giving pressure ,then it will stick to give a good shape.Store them in air tight containers . It will stay fresh for a week.

 



 Linking this to Nalini Suresh's "Tamizhar Tuesday Samayal "