Sweet Pudi Kozhakattai

Kozkakattais are festive Indian dumplings. The traditional and most common ones have some sweet or savory filling stuffed inside soft rice dough, and the whole thing is steamed. These traditional dumplings are much more labor-intensive to prepare for the average home-cook who battles with time to get a meal on the table. For such of us, these pudi kozhakattais are a nice variation! Rather than troubling yourself with stuffing the rice dough with a filling, you knead the cooked rice with the filling (sweet or savory) and steam. These dumplings taste just as good (if not better)!

My mom often prepares these, and so do my in-laws.

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

1. 1 cup raw white rice
2. 2 tablespoons shredded coconut
3. ½ teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
4. 1 - 1.5 cups crumbled jaggery or brown sugar (depending on how sweet you would like it)
5. few teaspoons sesame oil

Preparation:

1. Grind the rice in a blender until it is ground to the consistency of semolina (rava) or regular sand (as shown above).
2. Bring 4.5-5 cups of water (or more, depending on the type of rice you are using) to a boil in a medium sauce-pan. When the water boils, add the ground rice and stir constantly on medium or low-medium heat until the rice cooks and comes together as a moist dough. Add more water if required, if the rice doesn’t cook.
3. When the rice is cooked, add the powdered jaggery or brown sugar and coconut, and stir well on low-medium heat. The jaggery/sugar will melt in the heat. Keep stirring to incorporate the jaggery/sugar into the cooked rice. Stir until the the whole thing comes together as a soft, moist lump of dough (as shown in the picture).
4. Remove from heat, add cardamom and stir. Let the cooked sweetened rice cool.
5. When cool, pinch out small quantities of the cooked, mushy rice and make oblong shaped dumplings. On medium-high heat, steam the dumplings (kozhakattais) in a vegetable steamer or idli plates greased with some sesame oil, for 15 minutes until the kozhakattais are completely cooked (until a tooth-pick inserted in the middle of the dumplings come out clean).

Serve hot or at room temperature.