Puttu – Varutharacha Nadan Kadala Curry – A traditional Kerala breakfast!
Puttu – A Kerala delicacy – Steamed rice cakes with shredded coconut, traditionally served as breakfast with Kadala curry/Cherupayaru curry or simply with banana and sugar!
Varutharacha Nadan Kadala Curry – Brown Chickpeas soaked, boiled and later cooked with freshly grounded onion-coconut spice paste!
Kerala – God’s own country! Kerala is a small state that lies in the southwestern part of India, which abounds in natural beauty. The state is surrounded by the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats. Kerala is visited by many tourists throughout the year for its climate and greenery. Their cuisine is one of the tastiest and flavorful cuisines in India, which is predominantly prepared using coconut. My love for Kerala Cuisine started years back when I was a kid. My aunt and their family used to go for a vacation every year. When I was in my fifth standard, they planned to visit Alappuzha during annual holidays. My grandma and I were invited to join with them. Though I was hesitant initially, grandma insisted me to accompany her. We visited Guruvayoor and Alappuzha. It was where I tasted their authentic puttu and kadala curry, banana chips and egg curry in their style. I instantly fell in love with their mild spicy curries with lots of coconuts. Since then, I used to request my friends from Kerala to bring their traditional banana chips whenever they visited their hometown. My second visit to Kerala was during my college days in the third semester. It was a great relief for us from the scorching sun. We stayed in Kerala for a day and visited the most renowned theme park – VegaLand.
Once I moved to Chennai for my job, it has been my ritual to visit Kerala restaurant for their puttu and appam. My third visit to Kerala is after my marriage with my husband. We visited Munnar and stayed in a cottage with scenic beauty. He knows my love for food and we requested the Hotel manager for their authentic Kerala food. They prepared parotta and egg curry on the first day since we requested. The next day, we wanted to taste puttu and insisted our driver anna to take us to a restaurant which serves puttu for breakfast. We were told that most of the restaurants in Munnar have South Indian food than Kerala cuisine to attract tourists. And then, he informed as he would take us to his relative house if we were prepared to travel another 30miles rather than sightseeing. Being foodies, we were excited to travel for good food. He informed her on the way and when we reached, we were served hot steamed puttu and spicy kadala curry. Both I and my tummy was happy. Late in the evening, he compelled us to delay our dinner by one hour. He brought us hot Kappa (Tapioca) and fish curry for us. He bought us his homemade food since we loved Kerala cuisine. It was a scrumptious dinner. Thanks a ton to him. He also brought us Tapioca and red chilies – this particular red chili is small but spicy and used normally to prepare Kappa.
When I went to India recently for my vacation, I bought puttu maker and since then, I have been preparing it often whenever I crave for some authentic Kerala cuisine. When I am lazy, I used to pair it with banana and sugar. When I want to indulge for breakfast and had ample amount of time in hand, I prepare this spicy kadala curry or cherupayaru curry. If you haven’t tried it yet, I recommend you to try it once and eventually you will fall in love with this delightful breakfast.
Puttu – Steamed Rice Cake with Coconut
Ingredients:
- 1 Cup Rice flour /Puttu flour
- ¼ Cup + ½ Cup Desiccated Coconut
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- Water, required amount
Preparation of rice flour:
- In case if you would like to prepare rice flour at home, follow the below procedure:
- Soak rice in water for about 2-3 hours and drain the water completely.
- Dry the wet rice in shade; Let it dry completely.
- Once dried, grind it into a coarse powder. Do not grind it smoothly. It has to be coarse for preparing puttu.
- In a pan, heat the rice powder and saute it for about 2-3 minutes. Do not roast it.
- Let it cool completely. Store the flour in an airtight container and use whenever needed.
Preparing Puttu flour:
- In a large bowl, add a cup of rice flour/puttu flour and add water little by little. Mix the flour gently using hands.
- There should not be any lumps in the flour. If there are any, break them with a very gentle swift action of your fingers. The flour should resemble like bread crumble.
- To check the consistency of the flour and its moisture content, hold a little amount of flour in your palm and press it gently. The flour should hold together easily and stay intact until you crumble it apart.
- Do not press the flour hard or squeeze it. Use only gentle action to break the lumps in the flour to get soft light puttu.
- Add ¼ cup of desiccated coconut to the puttu flour and gently mix.
- To get the soft & fluffy put, transfer the puttu flour with coconut into food processor and process it for 2-3 seconds. Do process the flour in batches. Processing huge amount of flour at a time will results in lumps and make the flour hard.
Preparing Puttu using Puttu maker:
- I used puttu maker to prepare puttu. It has a small vessel at the bottom and long cylindrical tube with the filter at the bottom.
- Fill the vessel with water and bring to boil.
- Let us layer the puttu in the cylindrical tube. Place the filter at the bottom of the tube (the filter will be similar to the one which uses in Idiyappam maker)
- Layer the tube with coconut first. Add puttu flour on top of the coconut till the mid of the tube. Layer the flour with coconut and top with the coconut flour.
- Finally, layer it with coconut and gently even it. Do not layer it by a hard press. Let it be loosely layered than tightly packed.
- Cover the lid and place the tube above the vessel with the boiling water.
- Let it steam. You could see the steam coming through the holes in the top lid. Let it steam for about 3 minutes.
- Gently remove the tube from the vessel and let it stand for a minute.
- Now, remove the lid and push the bottom of the filter gently using a ladle so that the puttu come out without breaking.
Preparing Puttu using Idli cooker:
- If you don’t have puttu maker, you can prepare the puttu in Idly cooker. Grease the molds with oil.
- Layer with coconut followed by puttu flour and coconut. Ensure the bottom and top layer is coconut.Steam it for about 3-5 minutes until the puttu is ready.
Notes:
- Some prefer to use hot water for preparing puttu flour whereas I added normal water. The addition of hot or cold water is your preference. I have tried in both ways. The main trick of soft and fluffy puttu lies in using the right amount of water and preparing flour without any lumps.
- Always gently break the lumps using the swift motion of your finger. Break up the lumps as much as you can
- The addition of coconut to the flour helps in achieving fluffy puttu. Ensure that you process the puttu flour with coconut only in batches. Do not over process it.
Serving suggestions:
- Authentically puttu is served with Kadala curry or cherupaayaru curry.
- If you are running out of time, simply serve puttu with sugar and banana.
Varutharacha Nadan Kadala Curry
Ingredients:
- 1 Cup Brown Chickpeas/Kadala
- Pinch of asafoetida/hing
- 3 tablespoon + 1 tablespoon Coconut Oil
- ½ teaspoon Mustard Seeds
- Handful or Curry Leaves
- 3 Dry Red Chili
- 10 Shallots
- ½ Cup Desiccated Coconut
- 3 Green Chilies
- ½ teaspoon Turmeric Powder
- 1 teaspoon Red Chili Powder
- ½ teaspoon Coriander Powder
- ½ teaspoon Fennel Seeds
- ¼ teaspoon Garam Masala Powder
- 1 ½ cup Water, adjust according to your consistency
- Salt as per taste
Method:
- Soak brown Chickpeas in water overnight and wash it thoroughly.
- Pressure cook the chickpeas with hing, green chilies, and salt for about 3 whistles.
- Let the pressure release. Keep it aside.
- In a small non-stick kadai, add 3 tablespoons of coconut oil and heat it over medium flame.
- Once the oil is hot, add coconut, shallots, fennel seeds and roast it for about 5 minutes, until they become light brownish.
- Now, add in the spice powders and roast it for about a minute. Switch off the flame and allow it cool down completely.
- Once cooled down, grind it into a smooth paste using water.
- Combine the boiled chickpeas with the grounded masalas. Add water and boil it until the grounded masalas are blended well with chickpeas.
- Adjust the consistency of the curry according to your personal preference.
- Sprinkle garam masala on top of the curry and give a stir.
- Season with salt and cook for about a minute. Switch off the flame and keep it aside.
- Let’s prepare tadka for the curry.
- In a pan, add the remaining amount of coconut oil and heat over medium flame.
- Once the oil is hot, add mustard seeds and let it splutter.
- Then, add curry leaves and dry red chilies. Saute until the dry red chilies turn slightly brownish.
- Pour the tadka over the curry and let it stand until you serve.
- Gently mix tadka with the curry while serving.
- Serve Puttu with kadala curry.
If you try the recipe, do let me know how they tasted in comments. If you like space, do like and follow my profile at here – Facebook, Google
Yours Truly,
Karthi
