DISH NAME : KOZHUKATTA- SWEET RICE DUMPLINGS WITH FILLING

Preparation Time : 30 minutes

Cooking Time : 12 minutes

Description

Kozhukatta(Malayalam) or Kozhukkattai (Tamil) has sweet and savory versions. The sweet version is prepared as a ritual in Syrian Christian(Kerala christian) homes on Palm sunday(the sunday preceeding Easter). It is a dumpling made with rice flour with jaggery/ sugar and coconut.

Note

1) Keep the dough covered with a wet cloth all the time, to avoid the dough from drying out.
2) Roasted rice flour absorbs a little more water than the usual unroasted flour. So be careful about adding water. Water should neither be more nor less. The dough should not be sticky.
3) Adding ghee to boiling water makes the dumpling softer.
4) Strain jaggery immediately after melting or it may crystalize.
5) Sometimes the dumplings will crack a little after removing from heat, with the jaggery syrup oozing out, but that's ok.

Method

FOR FILLING:-
First make the filling.
1) Melt jaggery with quarter cup water. Strain for impurities.
2) Heat strained jaggery adding grated coconut and ghee. Keep frying till all the liquid is dried up.
3) just before removing from fire, add cardamom, cumin and ginger powder.
4) Keep aside to cool.
FOR THE DUMPLING:-
1) Boil water with salt and ghee.
2) Pour boiling water over rice flour and stir well with a spoon to mix well.
3) Keep aside till the cools to handle.
4) Knead dough to make it smooth.
5) Make lemon sized balls of the dough.
6) Take one ball and flatten it in the palm of your hand and with the other hand make a thin roundel. Then start folding the roundel inwards to form a cup shape.
7) Keep a few teaspoons of the filling, cover the filling by pulling in the dough over the filling. Re-roll the dough to form a ball without crack.
8) Repeat making the dough balls.
9) Heat a steamer with water.
10) Keep the dumplings in a vessel, (preferably a perforated vessel)and keep in the steamer and steam for about 10 to 12 minutes. since the rice flour is mixed with boiling water, it is almost cooked and since jaggery-coconut mixture is also cooked
it will not take a long time to cook these dumplings.
11) Remove from fire. Keep covered for another minute or two.

Serving Suggestions

Serve warm.