KOZHUKATTA or SWEET RICE DUMPLING

KOZHUKATTA or SWEET RICE DUMPLING: This is one dish which can be eaten as breakfast, snack and even as a desert. I am sure every keralite would have had a number of times. Well, there are variations to kozhukatta. The one that I am presenting here is the sweet one. At my husband’s place they call it thuru vecha kozhukatta (no idea why they call it that way....hopefully some Trivandrum person will be kind enough to explain that).

 I also remember my mother making the non sweet version (even my elder sister in law makes it. She loves it that way). But both the versions are different.

 My grand mom used to make it in the traditional way. She used to soak the rice and cumin and grind them and scraped coconut is also used. But I am not sure of the traditional way of making it. My mom used to make it the easy way. So, I am following her footsteps. J

This sweet rice dumpling can be made of sugar or palm jaggery (chakkara) or jaggery (sharkara). I have used palm jaggery here. I will try to post the non sweet version soon.

INGREDIENTS:

Rice powder – 1.5 cup

Hot boiling water - 2 cups

Jaggery – around ¼ cup

Scrapped coconut – around ¼ cup

(The following ingredients are optional.)

Cumin seeds or jeerakam– ¼ teaspoon

Cardamom seeds or Elachi or elekka– 2 to 3

Dry ginger or chukku – a pinch

Salt – a pinch

METHOD:

Mix the scraped coconut and Jaggery along with the spices (which are optional). Take the rice powder in a bowl. Sprinkle with salt. Add hot boiling water little by little and mix at the same time. This will ensure you do not have any lumps and the water gets absorbed evenly. Close the bowl with a lid. Leave for few minutes.

Knead the dough with the hand. Be careful as the dough is hot. The dough will have the consistency of a bit loose chapatti or slightly loose pastry mix. It should not be watery.

Once kneaded, make balls out of it. Once you make a ball, immediately flatten it on the palm of your hand (dip your fingers in water before flattening if the mixture is sticky). Add the coconut mixture to the centre and bring back the flattened dough ends to form a ball.

Once all the dumpling balls are made, place it in a steamer and steam for about 5 to 7 minutes and serve. You may serve it hot or cold.

NB: Once you roll the dumpling ball, you may roll it between your palms to ensure they get a proper round shape.

When you flatten the dough, do not make it too thin as the ball may break and leak the sugar or jaggery juice into your steamer.

Avoid putting cumin and dry ginger together; I personally do not like the taste. You may do it, if you like the combination.

Depending on your sweetness level adjust the jaggery or sugar.