Sweet Rice Puttu & Awards....

Puttu is my all time favorite. My grandma, My mother,& MIL usually prepares it wonderfully delicious puttu as a snack in the evening and usually it is the sweet variety. Puttu is a culinary specialty & this is a common dessert in our village and near by Tirunelveli dist in Tamil Nadu. It is traditional dish used to prepare in functions & festivals for neividyam. This puttu is different from what the Keralites prepares. .. Puttu is a steamed rice cake is supposed to be soft and fluffy. It’s made with rice flour, grated coconut and jaggery. The process is also time consuming but worth every effort. Traditionally it’s prepared by soaking raw rice in water, draining it, spreading it on a cloth and powdering the rice, while the rice is still damp.It is not that difficult to make provided you have loads of time to spare & a lot of patience too... . This dish came to my mind for purva’s Holi festival Event. But work front kept me busy and somehow I could manage it to prepare it on Holi.hope you enjoy it:)

Here's the recipe for it; .

Ingredients:

Rice -3 cup

Turmeric powder -1/4 tsp

Jaggery- 1 cup

Salt - A pinch

Water-¼ cup

Cardamoms-4 to6

Coconut-cut into small piece few

Cashew- 50 gm

Method:

1. Soak raw rice in water, draini it, spreading it on a cloth and powdering the rice, while the rice is still damp. Then make like powder by using Mixer.

2. Dry roast rice flour in a kadai in medium flame till golden coloured. Remove from fire & allow to cool.

3. Heat the water with salt & turmeric till it becomes lukewarm.

4. Sprinkle this little by little, to the roasted flour & mix well till it resembles fine bread crumbs.( The rice flour should be wet enough to hold together when you try making a fist with it and dry enough to break apart at a simple knock with the thumb. It shouldn’t be clumpy or too powdery. Keep breaking it with the hand as you mix. The amount of water varies with the kind of rice flour used. So keep adding in small quantities.)

5. Sieve this using a coarse sieve & wrap the flour in a clean cloth like a bundle. Place the bundle in a vessel; keep the vessel in a pressure cooker & steam cook for 10 minutes. Remove from fire & crumble the flour without any lumps. Again pass this steamed flour through the sieve(Take a pinch of the cooked flour and rub it with your two fingers.If the flour turned like a thread then the cooking is over.It is ready. If you can do that , If notkeep it again in the cooker and cook for some more time.)

6. Mix well with hands without any lumps.Fry cashew nuts in 1 sp ghee and keep aside.

7.Now, in a deep pan pour 50 ml water and put crushed jaggery and when it melts filter it.
Make syrup out of it.

8. The syrup should become thick enough, so that when you add a drop of it in a vessel of water, it should solidify immediately. (When a drop of the jaggery syrup is dropped in cold water, you should be able to form it into a ball. When you reach this consistency switch of the stove and remove the vessel from the stove.)

9. Now add this mixture little by little to the steamed flour and simultaneously mix the flour and jaggery syrup with the other hand using a spatula. Be careful because the syrup will be very hot and it will scald your skin if it drops.

10. The 'puttu' is ready and it must be like 'dry sand' after adding the jaggery. Allow to cool & then serve.

11. Add cardamom powder, grated coconut and fried cashew nuts. Mix well. Actually it is some what difficult ...Experiment in small quantities.

These goes to FestiveFood: Holi Hai event hosted by dear Purva.


Load Of Awards:

Vibaas & Gita has passed me on this very cute award. Thanks a lot for both of you for remembering me!

It is really tough to pick just 8 of my friends for this award, so I am passing on this award to all my blogger friends

Again Vibaas has passed me all this cute awards for me Thanks for sharing it with me dear.I feel honoured dear:)

I would like pass these awards to all my sweet friends Purva, Priti, vidhya, Suma, Hema, Srihari vatsan, Asha, Akal Sappadu, Nithya Praveen, Rajeswari Vijayanand, Rekhas Kitchen, Gita,Vidas, Malar, Viki, Anu,Mahima,srilekha, sia, A&N, Usha, Sripriya, Deesha ,N33ma.
Enjoy !!!