Traditional sweet puttu, which is considered as a favourite neivedhyam (offering) for the Goddess.

Puttu is a traditional dish made of pounded rice, which is steamed and consumed. Puttu means ‘portioned’ in Tamizh Language. You may use raw rice, boiled rice or the special rice for this dish called ‘puttu rice’. You may need muslin cloth for this dish.

INGREDIENTS:
  • Rice – 1 cup
  • Jaggery – 1 cup (shredded)
  • Turmeric Powder – a pinch
  • Green Cardamom – 2 Nos.
  • Salt a pinch
  • Water
  • Grated Coconut – 2 tbsp
  • Ghee – 2 tbsp
  • Cashew nut – 4 nos.
PREPARATION METHOD:
  1. Wash Rice, drain. Let it rest for 10 minutes, covered.
  2. Heat a kadai (wok), roast the rice till it turns golden in color.
  3. Transfer to a plate or paper & let it come to room temperature. Dry Grind it to little coarse texture and transfer to a mixing bowl.
  4. Add a pinch of salt and turmeric to it. Mix well.
  5. Sprinkle water little by little while mixing it. Rice will keep absorbing water. So when it becomes little dry, keep adding tbsp of water till you feel it becomes moist, soft and like a finely grated coconut. The volume of the flour will double.
  6. When you get the crumbling texture (take a fistful of the flour. try crumbling it), close it and keep it aside for sometime (half hour for raw rice. One hour for boiled rice)
  7. As the rice flour stands for sometime, melt the shredded jaggery and filter it to remove any sediments / impurities.
  8. Chop / break the cashewnut into small pieces, heat ghee in a small wok and fry them till golden brown. keep aside.
  9. Powder the green cardamom.
  10. Now let us get back to the rice flour. Transfer the moist flour to the cloth.
  11. Heat a steamer and steam this prepared rice flour for 10 minutes.
  12. Carefully lift the cloth (use a glove as it will be too hot) and open it.
  13. On a wok, heat the filtered jaggery water to a thick syrup. Keep a small bowl with water for checking the jaggery syrup ready.
  14. When the syrups becomes bubbly, thick, drop a little into the water kept. Take it with your fingers. If you are able to shape it into a ball, that is the right consistency for this dish.
  15. Now switch off the flame. Add grated coconut, ground cardamom powder, fried cashewnuts along with the ghee to it.
  16. Add the steamed rice flour. Mix well.
  17. Let it stand for 20 – 30 minutes.
  18. Delicious flavourful sweet puttu is ready!