Cooks Joy

Talking about the outer cover my mom managed to surprise me yet again. This being a traditional recipe, I wanted to confirm with my mom. My basic idea of the outer cover is to boil water and add it slowly to the rice flour until it forms a dough. With store bought rice flour this is simple right? But my mom had other plans .. over confidence on the daughter I suppose !!. I start off to confirm the filling and she tells me to soak rice and grind to a paste. Saute the paste until it forms a ball and she claimed that this method yielded softer kozhukattais than the other method of making the outer cover. Well what am I supposed to do, but to trust her as always and go about making it in the way she mentioned. Of course it turned out great and I gulped down a few, which is a surprise since I am not a sweet loving person .

Happy Vinayaka Chaturthi my friends.

Ingredients
1 cup raw rice
Salt
2 tsp oil
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup jaggery

Yields
15 – 20 small kozhukattais

Notes
1. Keep the flame on medium to low while stirring the paste. If the flame is high, then the paste will ball up but the inside will not be cooked. Hence it will be hard to form a cup.
2. If you saute it for too long, then it toughens up and it will not be flexible enough to form a cup. Don’t panic if you end up with a tough dough. Wet your fingers with water and slowly form a cup.
3. So low heat and turning off when it forms a dough are the key items for the outer cover.

Method – For Filling
Dry roast sesame seeds taking care not to burn them.

Take in a blender.

Grind coarsely.

If your jaggery is in lumps then add it to the sesame seed mixture and run the blender once.

Filling ready for the kozhukattai.

Method – For Outer cover
Soak raw rice for 2 hours.

Grind to a smooth paste using water. I have used wet grinder, but blender works fine too.

Add salt to the ground batter.

Heat oil in a pan. Add the batter.

Keep stirring on a medium flame until the batter thickens and forms a dough.

See how it has thickened.

Wait for few minutes and knead the dough. We want the dough to be warm.

Pinch a small piece of dough and roll to form a ball.

Dip your fingers in oil and form a cup as shown by moving the thumb and other fingers and flattening at the same time. Don’t worry if it tears a little or if you do not get a perfect cup. Practice is the key here and one day we will all be at a point where we can make these cups with our eyes closed

Add a tsp of filling to the cup.

Gently bring the edges of the cup closer.

Close the cup and seal the top.

Ready for steaming. I steamed in pressure cooker for 10 minutes without weight valve. (Similar to steaming idlis).

Out of the pressure cooker waiting to say cheese for the picture

See how cute they look .

Sending to FSF event at Show and Tell.