Very simple and comforting mildly sweet dish usually made as naivedyam for Lord Ganesha, is also very easy to prepare using items readily available in the pantry. Just rice flour, jaggery and half-an-hour’s time are all it needs.

I never ate these when I grew up in TN nor made them after my cooking journey started. Only the kaara (savoury) pidi kozhukkattai that too using millet flours I made once or twice and they didnt taste all that great. For kozhukkattai, letting the rice flour half-cook is essential. After that steaming does the rest of the cooking and stabilizing (gelatinizing) the starch. There is lot of food science after all, in this simple dish!

Ingredients:

• Rice flour – 1 cup
• Jaggery – 1 cup
• Water – 1.25 to 1.5 cups
• Coconut grated – 1 tbsp
• Elaichi powder – 1/2 tsp
• Ghee – 1 tbsp
• Salt a pinch

Method:

1. Take the jaggery in a pan and melt it by adding water and heating. (if jaggery has impurities, you can filter them out)
2. When the syrup reaches a rolling boil, add ghee, salt, grated coconut, elaichi powder and turn off the heat.
3. Now quickly add the rice flour and mix well to coat it with the sugar syrup and get half-cooked.
4. Close the pan with a lid and rest it for 10 minutes.
5. Grease your hand with a little ghee and knead it lightly.
6. Take small balls of the dough and shape them into pidi kozhukkattai by pressing the dough into a fist.
7. Line all the kozhukkattai in a greased idli plate and steam for under 10 minutes.

Notes:

1. Using too much water or cooking the dough for too long makes it slimy and gummy. The dough should look like a shiny, sticky halwa after mixing it off-heat. Quickly cover and let it rest. As it cools down, it becomes a soft, non-sticky, pliable dough.
2. Over-steaming will melt the jaggery in the dough, causing the shapes to sag, weep liquid, and turn gluey.