Rice Flour Puttu Recipe

Toast the rice flour in a dry skillet until hot.

Boil little water (around 1 cup) with salt and turmeric powder.

Sprinkle as much water as required in the toasted flour little by little. The correct consistency is, you should be able to form balls, but at the same time you should also be able to crumble it back into powdered form.

Steam this flour mixture for 20 minutes. My mother filled little water in a big frying pan, placed a small trivet in the bottom and used the vegetable steamer which came along with my electric rice cooker to steam the flour. Wet a cotton cloth and pour the prepared rice powder in it and cover by bringing the ends of the cloth over the flour and place it on the vegetable steamer and close the frying pan with a lid.

Once the flour is steamed, transfer this mixture to a big plate and spread it. If it has lumps sift it using a sieve.

Meanwhile in another vessel add the jaggery and water just enough to cover the jaggery and melt it.

Sieve the jaggery solution to get rid of any impurities.

Again pour it back in the vessel, add the coconut, cardamom powder and pachakarpooram and let this mixture boil.

When a drop of the jaggery syrup is dropped in cold water, you should be able to form it into a ball. When you reach this consistency switch of the stove and remove the vessel from the stove.

Now add this mixture little by little to the steamed flour and simultaneously mix the flour and jaggery syrup with the other hand using a spatula. I have a big wooden fork which is simply perfect for this job. Be careful because the syrup will be very hot and it will scald your skin if it drops.

In a dry skillet toast the cashew pieces and add it to the prepared Puttu.