With very few days left to start the New Year, when I recollect, I am not definitely not the same person as I was a year ago. Experiences have shaped myself as a better person. I have met my short term goals and working on achieving my long term objective. Am not sure what's in store for me for future but I hope with the experiences that I have cultivated I would be able to handle obstacles in a better way.
Moving on to today's dish, Paal Kozhukattai, it is a very popular Chettinad sweet made with rice flour which is cooked
in jaggery or sugar added with milk/coconut milk.
I like the one prepared with Jaggery.
There are many variations to this and I was not getting the correct texture of this
dish earlier. Whenever I add jaggery to the milk, it would start to
curdle. Later checked with mom and got
to know the right procedure of preparing this sweet. Prepared this many times in the recent times and has come out perfectly. This is a foolproof recipe and you would end
up loving the final texture and taste of the dish.
INGREDIENTS:
Milk - 1 cup
Rice flour/Idiyappam flour - 1 cup
Thick coconut milk - 1 cup
Thin coconut milk - 1.5 cup
Cardamom powder - 1
tsp
Oil - 1 tsp
Grated Jaggery - 1 cup
Salt - a pinch
Water - approximately 3/4 cup (for dough preparation) + 1
cup (added to thin coconut milk)
Grated coconut - 2
tsp
PREPARATION:
1. Boil milk and keep
aside. Let it cool completely.
2. Grate the coconut and extract the first thick milk and
second thin milk separately.
3. In a vessel, boil
water, add a pinch of salt and oil to it.
Take rice flour in a bowl, pour the boiled water, and mix well with a
ladle. When it is warm, mix the dough
well and make it smooth.
4. Take small
portions from it and make tiny little balls of equal size as shown in picture.
5. Grate jaggery and keep it aside.
6. Now heat the thin coconut milk adding 1 cup of
water to it. Once it starts boiling, gently
drop the rice flour balls. Do not turn
it with ladle immediately. After 2
minutes, turn it gently and drop the next kozhukkattai batch. Likewise, add all the kozhukkatai and let it
boil in small to medium flame. After
sometime, you would start seeing the rice flour balls floating at the top with
mild change in color. If you see the picture,
you could make out that the rice ball is cooked. Let it cook for 5 more minutes.
7. Add the grated
jaggery slowly to the milk-rice ball mixture and stir well. In between, add a small tsp of rice flour and mix with water
without any lumps. Add this to kozhukkattais
and mix well. This is to done to bring the
dish in thicker texture. Let it boil for
3 more minutes. Keep stirring in
between.
8. Add the cooled
milk slowly and stir well. The milk
should be completely cold when you add to the hot kozhukktattis. Otherwise, it would start to curdle.
9. Add 2 tsp of grated
coconut and elachi powder to the kozhukattais.
After 3 minutes, switch off the flame and add thick coconut milk. Do not boil after adding the thick coconut
milk.
Now yummy Paal kozhukkattais are ready to be served.
