Red Rice Paal Kozhukattai/Sweet Dumpling

Lord Ganesha, one who removes obstacles and brings prosperity being worshipped by everyone with no reservations.

🌸Ganesh Chathurthi🌸 without a kozhukattai/modak is sacrilege. How could I let you people commit it😉😋.

Here comes my first post for this festive season-Red Rice Paal Kozhukattai 😍.

🥟 Paal Kozhukattai is a sweet pudding where rice balls are cooked in milk, coconut 🥥 milk, and jaggery syrup.

Here, I made my vegan version, gluten free, healthy Red Rice Kozhukattai cooked in coconut🥥 milk, jaggery and country sugar syrup with a dash of coconut🥥 oil.

For more interesting, innovative festive season sweets and snacks, click here.

Ingredients:

For Kozhukattai:

Red Rice Idiyappam Flour-1/2 cup

Country sugar-1 tbsp

Water+thin coconut milk-3/4 cup-1 cup (as reqd)

Salt-1/4 tsp

Coconut oil-1 tsp

For Syrup:

Jaggery-1/3 cup

Country sugar-1/4 cup

Water-1/4cup

For the liquid:

Thin Coconut milk- 2 cups

Thick Coconut milk-1/2 cup

For Red rice flour slurry:

Red rice dough (kneaded)-1 tsp

Water-2 tbsp

For garnish:

Cardamom powder

Slivered pistachios

Dried rose petals

Instructions:

1. Prepare a syrup with jaggery and country sugar with water till it dissolves, filter it and bring it to room temperature.
2. Mix red rice idiyappam flour and sugar. Roll boil water and thin 🥥 milk, add coconut oil and salt to it.
3. Gradually add hot water+milk mixture to the Flour, and sugar mixture and stir it well.
4. Close the flour for 5 mins and then knead into smooth dough when warm.
5. Make small balls from the dough (reserve a tsp of dough for slurry, refer notes) and wrap it with cling film.
6. In a thick pan, roll boil the thin coconut milk, then add the balls, cook for 3 mins without stirring.
7. Later, gently stir and cook again for 3 mins.
8. Once cooked, balls start to float (can check the ball for doneness)
9. Prepare a slurry by mixing water with reserved dough. Add this to the pan and cook for 2 mins, starts to thicken.
10. Add cooled down jaggery syrup, stir and cook for 2-3 mins on low flame.
11. Finally add ½ cup of thick coconut milk, stir and cook for a min. (Shouldn’t roll boil, or it’ll curdle)
12. Switch off the flame, rest for 30 mins and the liquid gets thickened.
13. Sprinkle with cardamom powder. Serve warm or cold.

Notes:

• Feel free to try this recipe with regular rice flour or any traditional rice flour, but make sure it’s idiyappam or Kozhukattai flour. If not available, roast the plain flour to get the same results.
• Adding sugar to the flour enhances the flavour. I feel only flour may not give that taste as it’ll be bland.
• Similarly, adding thin coconut milk to water will improve the flavour and aroma of the dough. It sheds a slight nutty flavour along with coconut oil added to the water mixture.
• You can replace coconut oil with ghee if you look for more flavour. Adding coconut oil and coconut milk makes this recipe a vegan diet.
• Reserve a gooseberry sized ball from the dough to prepare a slurry with water. This slurry helps to thicken the dish.
• After adding the rice balls, to the 🥥 milk, do not stir as it’ll break the balls. After 3 minutes, gently stir and let it cook for another 3 minutes.
• To check the doneness, you can pick one ball and cut through it. Another indication is balls start to float once it’s cooked.
• Also, make sure the jaggery syrup is completely cooled down, when being added to the 🥥 milk, this avoids curdling of milk.