Monday, July 31, 2006

Kozhakattai - Sweet Rice dumplings

Dear Foodies,


My mother's entry to JFI-Flour hosted by Santhi

Kozhakattai/Modak are a must during Vinayaka Chathurthi naivedyam spread in Andhra. At my home, it also finds a place in the menu on Varalakshmi Vratam and Garuda Panchami. For the Varalakshmi Vratam puja my mother makes them in a oval shape similar to that of Kajjikayalu and for Vinayaka Chavithi it is modak, a small pouch like shape.

Last Sunday was Naga Panchami (also known as Garuda Panchami in our house) and my mother made the kozhakattai as part of the naivedyam. She has sent me the recipe and the photos on time for the JFI-FLOUR event hosted by Santhi. Garuda Panchami is similar to the Rakhi festival in North India with a slight twist, the sister prays for the well being of her brothers and ties a thread dipped in turmeric on her wrist unlike the Rakhi which is tied on the wrist of her brother. There is also a short story narrating the signifincance of this vratam, I will ask my mother to blog about it soon.

Now to the recipe,

Ingredients:
Filling/Poornam # 1 : coconut poornam
  • 1 cup - Coconut, grated
  • 1 ½ cup -Jaggery (2 if you want it even sweeter)
  • 4-5 nos - Elaichi/Cardamom


Filling/Poornam # 2 : nuvvula poornam
  • ½ cup - -Til/Sesame seeds/nuvvulu
  • ½ cup - Jaggery

For the dough:
  • 1 cup -Rice flour
  • 2 cups - Water
  • pinch of salt
  • ½ tsp - Oil ( preferably sesame seed/gingili oil)


Procedure:
  1. Coconut Poornam:
Freshly grated coconut is the best for making the coconut filling. Take a wide pan and toss in the coconut and jaggery and stir till the mixture thickens and starts leaving the sides of the pan. Add the elaichi powder and stir for another half a minute. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and allow it to cool. Freshly grated coconut gives this filling its best taste.
  1. Nuvvula Poornam:
Dry roast the sesame seeds till they turn a slight brown. the seeds let out a winderful aroma as you roast them. Cool the sesame and coarsely powder it in a blender. Add fine pieces of jaggery to this and powder.
  1. Dough:
In a kadai/vessel bring two cups of water to a boil, add a pinch of salt and 3-4 drops of oil to the water. Once the water comes to a boil, gradually add the rice flour. Hold the ladle in the center of the vessel while adding the flour and then stir continuously for 3 mins on a low flame and then turn off the heat. When the dough is still hot, transfer it to a plate and cover with a wet cloth and knead well to remove any lumps. The wet cloth is to shield your palms from the heat.
  1. Kozhakattai:
Have some oil in cup and grease your hands as you make the kozhakattai. Take a lime sized ball of the dough and shape it into a cup with your fingers. First slightly flatten the ball on your palm like a disk, place your thumbs at the center of the disk, and the fingers on the outside and shape like a cup by moving the dough between your fingers.

  1. Put a spoon of the filling into the cups and seal it with the dough. You can either make them round or oval in shape.
  2. Steam cook the dumplings and serve.

~ Sevai ~
The kozhakattai dough can also be used to make rice noodles or Sevai. Divide the dough into balls and steam cook it for 5-6 mins. When they are still hot, place them in a murukku maker with a fine holed mould and shape them like murukkus. Top them with the til poornam and some ghee.

You can also make lime and coconut sevai, recipe here. Follow the same method you use to make lime rice or coconut rice, but use the rice noodles instead. Sevai are a wonderful and very healthy breakfast/tiffin item. The variations you can try with them are clearly left to your imagination. Do try them out, I promise you will fall in love with them !!

For the Sevai, if you want to try them out with out getting into the dough making process you can look for rice noodles in the Indian grocery stores or in the pasta section in the stores. You just need to boil them in some water just like pasta, but for a shorter period of time. You can then flavor the noodles to your liking.

If you have extra filling, shape them into mini ladoo's for an additional neivedyam item.

This recipe is also my entry to Anthony's Curry Mela this week :-)

21 thoughts:

KA said...

Great recipes Priya, never tried nuvvula poornam before.

Priya
You have to try it out Arjuna..its really yummy, we used to make small laddoos out of it and finish it up even before it got into the kozhakattai :-)

Anonymous said...

Those are ur mom's hands ofcourse..

I am so glad U and ur mom decided to be part of JFI priya.

Thank U very much for u putting it here and thanks to ur mom who so patiently got all the pics in such great detail and sent them to you.

Priya
Thank YOU for hosting the event and for the excellent theme Santhi, I knew I could'nt come up with something and got my Mother to do it for me instead :-)

Vineela said...

Nice recipe and good to see mom s participation.
thanka for the recipe
Vineela

Priya
I'm glad my Mother is sending me the recipes, saves me from experimenting in the kitchen :-)

Krithika said...

Great step-by-step presentation. Kozhukattai's are one of my favorites. Thank you so much aunty for this recipe.

Mom,
The pleasure is all mine Krithika, do try them sometime.

RP said...

Wow! Kozhukkatta is what I had originally planned to make for Jihva. Couldn't make it. But I am still craving for it, so I would try it in a few days. :) Nice entry for JFI.

Priya,
I'm still craving for them and have no clue when I can actually try them out..Wish I were at home now with mom.. :-(

Anupama said...

nice recipe priya. You mentioned Modak and i just remembered how long its been since I ate those. I am expecting my mother here in UK in 2 weeks . I'll ask her to make some for me.

Priya
Thats wonderful Anu, you are soooooooo lucky...looking forward to lip smacking recipes from your mother soon. Have laods of fun :-)

Anonymous said...

You and your mom form a very good team Priya! Lucky you! Kozhakattai recipe step by step is very thoughtful.

Priya
Thank you so much Arsu. I'm still not lucky enough to have tasted those kozhakattai's ;-)

Vaishali said...

Thank you so much for such a detailed post and all those relevant photographs, Priya. Thanks to your mother too. Btw, are those hands the ones that rocked your cradle? :)

Priya
Yep, those are the lucky ones ;-) Do try the recipe, its fairly simple with the ready made rice flour and coconut flakes that we get here. And I'm eagerly waiting for recipes from u n ur mil, tried out the bitter-gourd & mango curry and loved the combo.

Nabeela said...

oh wow....what an elaborate recipe...must be finger licking good after all that.

Priya,
It sure is Nabeela ! Do try it out, its actually very easy, Icould say its similar to making parathas :-)

Unknown said...

Excellent. Well done to u.

Priya
Thank you Puchpa :-)

Sudha said...

Lovely recipe Priya.I usually make the kozhukattai with the coconut stuffing..im gonna try your version soon..I love sevai...thanks for sharing.

Priya
Do try the sesame seed stuffing too sudha, it tastes wonderful. I'm a great fan of sevai too :-)

Unknown said...

Hi dear- Today is varalkshmi poojai, and mom and me have made kozhakattais with coconut poorman, ellu poornam and uppu kozhakattai-all the varieties, though mom did all the prep work and i helped her just cover the poornams-have taken pics, will post pics of the Goddess and her food soon

Priya
WOW....thats so nice Nandita, Thanks for dropping by to tell me all this...u have successfully made me Jealous now ..!!! :-(
I'm eagerly waiting for the pics from you. My mother also did the pooja today and I'm waiting on her pics too. More Varalakshmi pooja recipes coming up in the next few days :-)

starry said...

looks delicious.thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Two wonderful recipes. I am very fond of rice sevvige. Thanks Priya and ur mom for the detailed photos and discriptions .

Menu Today said...

Hi,
Good one. I will post my version soon. Thanx for sharing.

FH said...

All I can say is WOW!! How Traditional!! Feels good just to look at them,very nice. Good one!!


Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Hi there tried your recipe and it came out fantastic, only problem was i could not shape it like a modak, probably comes with a lotof practice.
Thank you for sharing your recipe and i love your blog.

Priya said...


Glad they came out well Anon. The shape does come with practice. Also the consistency of the dough, if its even slightly on the watery side it will tear apart while shaping :-(
But well, who cares as long as it tastes good ..hehe :-)
Hope to see you come by often :-)

Pooh said...

You have no idea how thrilled I am! An authentic recipe for kozhukuttai and idiappam! Yaaay!

Anonymous said...

Hi priya,

I tried ur kozhukattais today.I used the same measurements as u've mentioned and it came out really well.This is the first time am trying my hand on sweet rice dumplings and was so happy seeing the result :)

Janaki said...

Iam usual visitor of your blog and love it and pictures rock.Yours is the first hit on google when i searched for "kozhakattai recipe" :-) way to go ! You'll proly be seeing a lot more traffic given that ganesh chaturthi is tomm !

Blogging tips