Shravan is the marathi month that brings many festivities with it. Its the most auspicious month for me because I love the traditional stories, culture and secrets behind the food prepared each day of Shravan. Today is Nag Panchami meaning the fifth day of Shravana when we worship Nag (Snake). There are couple of stories connecting to this day one of which is of a farmer who ploughs on his farm and unintentionally kills the newly born baby snakes. When the mother snake returns back home she finds the snake hole full of blood with all her little ones killed. She traces the blood stains on the plough and realises that the farmer killed her babies when he was farming. With anger, she decides to kill all the family members of the farmer. She does so and then comes to know one of his daughters is at her in laws place in another village. She goes to her house where she finds the girl (farmers daughter) performing puja( ritual) by drawing snake and snakelets and offering them milk, water and prasad (Sweets) . She is delighted and asks the girl about her family. When she tells her the whole story the snake mother feels bad and sad and tells the daughter that she is delighted with the way she worships snakes and blesses the whole farmer family by bringing them back to life. Snakes have always been the friend of farmers and hence they do not work on farms and worship the snakes at the snake holes. On this day, we do not fry and cut anything and prefer the steamed dishes. The traditional maharashtrian dish prepared today in most of the households is ‘Dinda’ (Steamed Lentil Jaggery stuffed Whole wheat dumplings)
Connecting this tradition to modern era, it might seem as a myth but truly these traditions teach us to value the life of every creature on Earth. This is the month when baby snakes are born and hence this tradition has been followed since ancient to make sure no one kills the snakes intentionally or unintentionally.
Recipe of Dinda
Quantity: 9 Dinda
Servings: 3 People
Take 1 and 1/8 cup of wheat flour and add a pinch of salt to it. Add 2 and half tbsp of oil and make a medium dough (little bit hard). Do not knead a soft dough. Cover the dough and let it rest for 20 mins. (Tip: Adding hot oil to the dough makes it perfect but as we do not heat oil today, I added the normal temperature oil and still they turned out perfect)
Stuffing:
Take 1 cup of Lentils. Normally Chana Dal is used but in this recipe we have used Moong dal. Pressure cook it till it becomes soft. Take the same amount of Jaggery (Grated or small pieces). In a pan mix the dal and jaggery and cook on the medium flame. Keep stirring so that the mixture doesn’t stick at the bottom. Once the jaggery melts add a small pinch of cardamom powder and little bit of nutmeg powder. Turn off the gas and let it cool down.
Divide the dough and pooran (stuffing) into 9 equal balls. Roll the ball of dough into thin round ball. Put the stuffing part in the center. Fold the two opposite sides over the stuffing and the other two opposite sides over them. Make all of them. Steam them and enjoy the steamed ‘Dinda’ with spoonful of tup (Home made Ghee) on it. (Tip: Do not put on each other as they will stick to each other and break)
They are delicious! Do try them and let me know in the comments!
Shra's 