nani's laddoos

In the spirit of the new year (Diwali having been on Saturday), I am recommitting myself to posting here regularly and writing more often. Wishing everyone a safe, happy, and healthy year ahead, especially in these times.

My nani’s laddoos are famous among her grandchildren. Care packages would arrive from India via travelers’ suitcases, a box packed full to split between us all.

My grandmother was a devout Jain, only eating when the sun was up. My grandparents visited once in the winter; the days were so short that she wouldn’t eat after 4pm. She spoke to us only in Hindi, pretending she couldn’t speak English. It took me far too long to realize a Scrabble player as excellent as she was could understand everything we were saying. She walked to the temple every morning in India.  Nani mopped her own floors and did her own cooking, rare for a middle-class woman in Delhi. Her hair was always tightly braided and hung all the way down her back.

We visited them every other summer in India, but they came here rarely, comfortable in their own lives. Their last visit was in 2007, when my mother cajoled and guilted them into coming for my arangetram, a dance graduation of sorts. It was the summer before college for me, and the only free one I ever had, without obligations of camp or classes. Between dance practices, I was out with my friends, soaking up the time we had left before we went our separate ways.

I have a clear memory of one particular night from that summer. My parents had taken my grandfather to Foxwoods to gamble (an event in our household, as it was a two-hour drive from us), and I had gone out with my friends. Knowing my grandmother slept early, and the adults wouldn’t be back until the wee hours of the night, I stayed out past curfew. I was the only one of my friends who was still seventeen and thus had to adhere to the Massachusetts law prohibiting driving under eighteen between midnight and six am. I suspect that was also convenient for my parents; several of my friends didn’t have curfews, and I’m sure there would have been more arguments about it had Massachusetts not passed this law. It all should have gone swimmingly.

Unfortunately, my grandmother woke up. My sister, as yet unaccomplished in the ways of the artful teenage lie, couldn’t keep her at bay. As I drove back, feeling a little smug to have gotten away with this, my cell phone started ringing. It was my nani, demanding to know where I was. It was 12:20am and I wasn’t home yet. Startled to have been caught, I lied about a road closure – she didn’t drive here, she wouldn’t know. When I finally arrived home, and it was clear I was in one piece, she went back to bed.

In my parents’ house, my bedroom is above the kitchen. It means I can always hear the early risers (usually my mother and her sisters), who are always chatting as they putter around with their morning chai. Lying in bed the next morning, I could hear my grandmother lecturing my mother. How could she let me go out at all hours of the night? It was not appropriate behavior for a girl my age. Did she even know who I was out with?

I don’t remember how this ended, but I do not remember being punished for it. Perhaps everyone was in such a good mood from the trip to the casino the night before, or perhaps my mother was feeling more forgiving in those pre-college months. But it was a reminder of the way things were different here in America, in the way we had grown up.

Since my nani passed away, my mother sends me a care package every Diwali with her laddoos inside. It took her a few tries to get them exactly right. I don’t think she ever made them while her mother was alive. I hoard these, to the point of splitting one into five pieces on one occasion so everyone could have a taste but I would still have a few all to myself. It’s a once a year treat that I eagerly await.

I didn’t think to ask for a recipe until recently, when I wanted to make them as a gift. I had always assumed it was a complicated recipe, in the way that I find all my mother’s recipes complicated – a little of this, a pinch of that, and taste as you go to make sure it’s right. She rarely has anything in measurements; it’s all done by feeling. I imagined my nani cooking the same way.

When she sends me the recipe, I am surprised. The picture is of a page that looks like it came out of a typewriter, which has a recipe for besan ki barfi, a different dessert. The recipe for the laddoos is scribbled at the bottom of the page in my mother’s distinctive cursive. It has three ingredients and as many lines of instructions. The recipe calls for ground sugar, something I have never heard of.

A text confirms that this is, in fact, the recipe, and that ground sugar is powdered sugar. I have “all” the ingredients at home, but I put off making them for a few days; it’s a lengthy process, around 2 and a half hours start to finish.

My friend Sergo comes over for dinner that same week. It may have been the last time I had anyone over for dinner before the lockdown. We sit at the counter, eating dinner and chatting, and I mention that I have this project. Sergo has come over for Diwali dinner before, and he remembers the laddoos. He offers to stay and keep me company while I experiment. I’m happy to have a test subject, so I don’t have to rely only on my own taste buds.

I know now that laddoos are a labor of love. You melt butter and add chickpea flour. Then you stir. Constantly, for 45 minutes, over low heat. It’s what gives them their golden color – the butter and flour toast and brown, so slowly that it’s hard to tell as you’re watching it happen. There were a lot of pictures sent to my mother during this time, trying to gauge if the color was right, if the texture was right. The stirring was tiring, and Sergo and I took turns. It may have been the first time Sergo had spent so much time in front of the stove, something I’m sure we all would have teased him about next time we got together for happy hour, had lockdown not started two weeks later.

After the golden color and smooth consistency is reached, you add the sugar and stir it again, until it’s fully incorporated into the dough. It has to rest and cool before it can be shaped into rounds, although it can’t rest too long; the shaping has to happen while the dough is still warm. My hands were sticky, and my countertop was covered in plates, creating space to spread out the laddoos so they didn’t stick to one another as they cooled. I made Sergo try one, while it was still warm. He said it was good, but not the same as the ones he ate last year. I worried that all our efforts had gone to waste.

I tried one the next morning, after the laddoos had fully cooled, as I was packing them into a gift box. It was delicious. The cooling had allowed the melt-in-your-mouth crumble to develop, the one I associated with my nani’s (and now my mother’s) laddoos. I was elated, but also a little sad. The mystery was gone.

Nani’s Laddoos

Ingredients
2 cups besan (chickpea flour)
1 1/3 sticks unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar

Recipe

Melt the butter and add the besan, over low heat. Stir on low for 45 minutes. The dough will begin to develop a nutty smell and a golden color. Once it is deep golden, even a light brown, but not burnt, switch off the heat. Stir in the sugar, mixing until it is fully incorporated. Let it cool slightly, then form laddoos while still warm by rolling them into balls.