Ingredients
Makes 12 modaks. Scale using the Modak Calculator. Tap any ingredient to tick it off.
Method
Extract beetroot juice
Blend raw chopped beetroot with 120ml water until smooth. Strain through a fine mesh — press firmly to extract maximum juice. You need about 100ml vivid crimson-magenta liquid. Top up with plain water to total 240ml.
Make the filling
Standard: melt jaggery, add coconut, cook 8 minutes until dry, add cardamom and nutmeg off heat. Cool completely.
Make the beetroot dough
Bring beetroot water to rolling boil with salt and ghee. The liquid will be a vivid magenta-red that darkens as it heats. Add all rice flour at once, stir vigorously, rest 5 minutes. Knead with oiled hands 2–3 minutes. The dough is deep crimson-red.
Shape immediately
Beetroot dough oxidises slightly faster than plain dough — cover unused portions immediately. Standard 4–5 pleat shaping.
Steam 10–12 minutes
On banana leaf. The crimson modaks in the steamer are extraordinary. After steaming, the colour settles to a rich burgundy. Serve on a white or light-coloured plate for maximum visual impact.
Tips & Variations
The vivid red-magenta of raw beetroot changes to deep burgundy-brown after steaming due to heat-induced pigment breakdown (betalains are heat-sensitive). The final colour is still striking and beautiful — just different from the raw dough. If you want to preserve more redness, add 1 tsp lemon juice to the beetroot water before boiling.
There is a faint earthiness from the beetroot in the shell — just detectable, not dominant. Most guests cannot identify it. The sweetness of the filling completely dominates the eating experience.
Hirve (green), keshar (gold), and beetroot (crimson) modaks on the same plate — the most visually spectacular festival spread possible from natural colours alone.
About This Recipe
Beetroot modak is the most visually dramatic of the naturally-coloured steamed varieties — the raw dough is an almost unnaturally vivid crimson-magenta, and even after the colour shifts during steaming to deep burgundy, the result on the plate is striking. Like hirve modak, beetroot modak represents the tradition of the modak form adapting to new ingredients while maintaining the sacred structure.