Thengai Poorana Kozhukattai (Rice Dumpling with Coconut Filling)

Lord Ganesh is fond of Modhagam, rather than other kolukattais. So everybody will make this on Vinayakar Chaturthi and kids also love this kozhukattai. We can use a variety of stuffings and each has its own taste. I will blog other varieties also in due course. Today, I prepared Coconut stuffing for making Modhagam/Poorana Kozhukattai.

Ingredients:

• Rice flour – 1 cup
• Jaggery – ¾ cup
• Grated coconut – 1 cup
• Cardamom powder – 1 tsp
• Ghee – 1 tbsp
• Salt to taste

Method:

If you follow Method 3 in “How to prepare Kolukattai flour”, then the dough for outer cover is ready. If you follow other methods, you need to follow the following steps.

For outer dough (மேல் மாவு):

Take a pan with 1 ½ cups of water with 1 tbsp of gingelly oil  and bring it to rolling boil. Take a wide mouthed bowl, put the rice flour, add little salt, mix well. Add the boiling water slowly to the rice flour, stirring quickly with a whisk. Stop adding water when it reaches the correct consistency. Allow it to cool. Then knead the dough by applying some oil on your palm and keep it covered in wet cloth. Let it sit for 10 minutes.

For Filling (பூரணம்):

In a pan, melt jaggery with ¼ cup of water and strain the impurities. Again heat the jaggery till it starts bubbling. In the mean time, take a pan, add ghee, slightly roast the coconut gratings, then add jaggery syrup and cardamom powder and mix well till it reaches the consistency to make small balls.

For making Kozhukattai:

Make small balls out of rice flour dough and coconut-jaggery mixture. Take a rice flour dough ball and by applying oil on hand ,flatten it to form like a small bowl (சொப்பு/கிண்ணம்). Keep the coconut stuffing inside and cover this stuffing with the rice dough by gently stretching the edges of the dough so that the filling should get covered completely. Repeat the process for rest of the dough also.

If you find making kozhukattai in this shape difficult, you can make it in semi circular form. Flatten the rice dough on a plastic sheet/ banana leaf greased with oil , place the coconut stuffing at the centre, then fold the plastic sheet/banana leaf so that the kozhukattai gets folded at the centre. Seal the edges properly to ensure the stuffing does not come out.

Steam the kozhukattais for about 15 minutes and give a standing time for about 5 minutes. Delicious Poorana Kozhukattais are ready for Pooja!!

Note:

1. Be very careful while adding water to the flour because water quantity will vary depending on the quality of rice used for making flour.
2. Rice flour dough should be kneaded well by applying oil so that it should be soft and pliable. Otherwise the outer layer will get cracked or  sometimes, becomes hard.