Puttu - Rice powder and coconut delicacy

Making of the puttu podi:

Puttu: Steamed cylinders of finely powdered rice and coconut layers. A favorite breakfast in the Kerala cuisine. Most of the recipes for puttu ask for buying ready made rice flour or puttu podi meant for making puttu. I have often heard friends complaining that puttu made of ready puttu podi turns out very stiff and hard. We like our puttu crumbly and soft. So here is the puttu recipe from scratch.

I have used a mixture of brown or Kerala Parboiled rice along with just normal parboiled rice. The brown parboiled rice tends to make the puttu even softer. Wash and soak the rice for 3 hours atleast. Once soaked, drain the rice and spread it out on a cotton cloth to dry the rice for 10 - 15 minutes.

Dried rice is easier to grind and does not clump together.  Once dried, use a heavy duty grinder to finely powder the rice. Remember, the powder should be extremely smooth. It may take 5 minutes of grinder time. Do not powder all the rice at once. Make it into 2-3 batches. Your rice powder for the puttu is ready. This puttu powder can be done in bulk and stored in freezer for a couple of months.

Once ready to assemble the puttu, take rice powder in a deep dish, add a tsp of salt and 2-3 tsp of sugar. Add 2 tbsp of water and mix well. The water is added bare minimum to help the puttu cook with steam. If the mixture becomes wet or if the coconut filling is moist and you are using a puttu maker, you are inviting disaster. The pressure builds up and the whole cylinder of puttu will jump out with a blast. Literally. Been there done that. Be careful.

The layering of puttu can be done with plain coconut or spicy coconut masala with shredded chicken. Check out the recipe of Coconut Masala. Plain shredded coconut can also be used as a topping and a side dish of chicken/ sambhar can be served.

For assembling in a puttu maker, start at the bottom with a layer of plain shredded coconut. The second layer will be the rice powder. The third layer will be either the coconut masala or plain coconut. This will go on repeating till the last layer will be a coconut/masala layer. You can now steam your puttu. The doneness of your puttu is when your puttu maker steams.

If you want to make puttus and you don’t have a puttu maker, use your steamer and idli vaatis/bowl. Each individual bowl will be a puttu. The base layer will coconut filling and top it with rice powder. Pop these into your steamer and steam for 5 minutes.

If you like your puttus sweet make plain puttus with plain coconut topping and whilst serving add a tsp of ghee and sugar.

This recipe will serve 4 people. Each serving (3 puttus) of puttus give 414 calories approximately.

Here is what you’ll need:

¾ cup Kerala parboiled rice

¼ cup parboiled rice

1 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

2 tbsp water

Method:

1. Wash and soak the rice for 3 hours
2. Drain the rice and spread it out on a cloth and dry for 10- 15minutes
3. Grind the rice into a fine powder
4. Add salt sugar and water
5. Assemble the coconut filling and rice powder in a puttu maker and steam

Recipe by Zohra Sada