A Very Happy and Prosperous New Year to everyone! Since this day marks the beginning of another wonderful year, it seemed fitting to post this recipe which is a favorite dish to Lord Ganesha,who is worshipped for an auspicious and good beginning. Kozhukkatai in Tamil or Modak in Hindi, is a very famous sweetmeat in Tamil Nadu and is usually prepared for Ganesh Chathurthi, the special festival for Lord Ganesha. Since coconut shares the stage equally with jaggery in this dish I though that this would be appropriate for this months’s JFI for coconut kindly hosted by Ashwini of Food For Thought.
For the filling:
1 cup of grated coconut
2/3 cup of jaggery broken into pieces
1 tsp ghee
1/2 tsp of cardamom
Take the coconut in a wok, add jaggery and about 2 tablespoons of water.Keep stirring until the jaggery slowly dissolves and forms a sticky,semi solid mixture with the coconut. Turn off the stove,add the ghee and the cinnamon. Cool and store.
For the rice flour wrap:
Rice flour 1 cup
1 tsp sunflower/corn oil
Salt to taste
Sieve the rice flour and keep aside.Bring 1 and 1/4 cup of water to a boil in a wok, add salt and the oil. turn down the heat to medium and add the rice flour slowly.Stir all the while to prevent formation of lumps . Transfer the dough to a white muslin cloth, cover it and start pounding it to remove any remaining lumps. After it cools down, knead the mixture and make small round boats as shown in the picture. The oil is used to prevent the rice flour from sticking to your hands.
Now to assemble them together:
put 1 tsp of the filling in each of the cups, stick the edges of the flour with a drop of water. Cover a plate with a wet cloth, add these dumplings and steam cook in a cooker for about 15-20 minutes in medium flame. cool and remove. Viola, the rice dumplings are ready.
This is my entry to this month’s JFI for coconut kindly hosted by Ashwini of Food For Thought.