Antinunde/ Edible Gum Ladoo

Breast feeding mothers need extra calories. But they should also be very careful as to what they consume because babies have a weak digestive system and are sensitive to a lot of common foods well tolerated by adults. In fact every day vegetables like tomatoes, onions, green chilies can irritate breast fed babies leading to colic. To increase nutrition and calorific value of the mother’s meal as well as making sure that the food contains no potential irritants is an ordeal in itself. Antinunde is one such dish. Consuming this rich food is supposed to strengthen back, aid recovery as well as help augment milk supply. I vouch of the potency of the food myself.It is simple to make and delicious to consume. In fact Honey has been having a merry time with these goodies all along.



Serves 25 ||  Calories per serving  225 Kcl || Protein 3.15 gm ||  fat 5.66 gm || Fiber 2.56 gm

Dates 2 cups

Almonds 2 cups

Raisins 2 cups

Edible Gum 1 cup

Poppy seeds 2 tbsp (optional)

Cloves 6

Nutmeg/ Jaikai grated ¼ tsp

Saffron a pinch (optional)

Jaggery 1.5 cups (coarsely powdered)

Ghee for deep frying

Method:

• Deep fry the edible gum in ghee in several batches till they are light and puff up. Drain on a paper towel and cool. When completely cooled pound them into a fine paste.
• Toast Almonds on a warm skillet until fragrant, about 4-5 minutes. Set it aside to cool. When cool enough to handle chop it into pieces similar in size to raisins
• Similarly chop dates. Toss them into a big mixing bowl along with the raisins.
  
• Toast poppy seeds and toss them into the mixing bowl.
  
• Add pounded edible gum, ground cloves and nutmeg to the mixture. Mix well and set it aside.
• To prepare the jaggery syrup which imparts sweetness as well as binds the mixture together, combine the jaggery, saffron and a little water in a thick bottomed saucepan. Cook the mixture unto ‘one thread’ consistency. i.e. dip the back of a spoon into the syrup. Test the mixture between moist thumb and moist fore finger. If the syrup is sticky between the fingers and can be stretched into a single thread, then the syrup is ready to go.This step takes some practice and the mixture will obviously be very hard and can scald. So one should be very careful at this point.
• Pour little syrup on the side of the dry fruit mixture. Tightly press them on the palm into small balls/ladoos. If doing a particularly large batch, make the syrup in small batches to avoid the chance of the jaggery syrup turning hard before the ladoos are done.
  P.S: Originally Antinunde is made using shredded dried coconut/ copra and cashew nuts. The idea is six cups of dried fruit and nut mixture for every cup of edible gum and 1.5 cups of jaggery. I am not a particularly big fan of coconut and cashew nuts in this dish, therefore Mom eliminated them for me.