Sankranti Ellu Bella, and so many memories....| ಸಂಕ್ರಾಂತಿ ಎಳ್ಳು ಬೆಲ್ಲ | Heirloom Recipes |
Sankranti Ellu Bella is a traditional, heirloom trail mix of sesame seeds, peanuts and jaggery made for auspicious festival of Makar Sankranti in the state of Karnataka, India.
Equipment
- Knife
- Cutting Board
- Bowl
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup White Til sesame – dehusked
- 1/2 cup Peanuts
- 100 grams Copra dry Coconut,or 2 small halves
- 1/4 cup Fried Gram / Hurigadale / Pottu Kadalai
- 150 grams Jaggery
Instructions
- Day 1 : lightly scrape the outer covering of copra, with a heavy sharp knife, make longish strips and then stack the strips together and cut into small bits. Sun dry this on a metal plate for 1-2 hours (take care to sun dry them in a dust free place)
- Day 2 : Chop jaggery with the sharp knife into slightly bigger pieces and similarly sun dry them for 1-2 hours
- Day 3 : In a dry skillet, roast the peanuts on a very low flame till the skin starts to come off and they brown a bit. Transfer to a plate. Cool. Rub these peanuts In a burlap sheet / coarse clean towel and rub together till the skin peels off and all peanuts are broken into half. (You can completely skip this roasting and peeling if using good quality readymade unsalted roasted and shelled peanuts).
- In the same pan, on low heat, pop the sesame seeds (as they are dehusked they wont splutter), but just warm them for 20-30 secs without burning them. Cool into a plate
- Similarly dry roast coconut slivers till just warm. Transfer to plate. Dry roast fried gram for 10-15 seconds till just warm, transfer.
- In the end,switch off the stove and dry roast the jaggery for 10-15 seconds (this is optional, but recommended to remove any residual moisture)
- Cool all 5 ingredients. In a large clean bowl, mix all of them.
- Store them in airtight containers. They keep upto a week on the countertop.
Notes
Tips to make this delicious Ellu Bella:
- If you have any elders / kids who are unable to consume these as such, powder a handful and shape into ladoos with a tsp of ghee. But then the shelf life is only for 1-2 days for the ladoos.
- Use best quality ingredients to get great results
- Use dry jaggery (or achchu vellam / Achchu Bella) for jaggery component. Paagu Vellam (or the softer variety) will melt even as you are chopping them.
- Scraping copra makes the cutting process very simple. Else its really hard to chop the same into bits. If you have an adike kathri (betelnut cutter), make sure you use them to chop the jaggery and copra finely.
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