Sweet Kozhukkattai

Vinayaga Chaturti /Ganesh Chaturti is the birthday of Lord Ganesha which is celebrated in a grand manner in India. It is a Hindu festival and also my favourite festival and Lord Ganesha is my favourite god. I love him so much that I have a wide collection of Vinayagar idols in terracotta, ceramic and what not. I still love buying the idol make of clay and the colorful umbrellas. You can see some of my collections in the pictures.

Kozhukattai is a favourite dish of Lord Ganesha. It is made with rice flour, coconut and jaggery stuffing. My mom makes varieties of kozhukattais and I am sharing the one I love most.

I am also sharing with you the method to prepare the rice flour for making Kozhukattai.The kolukattai will be hard if you use store bought rice flour. Either you have to prepare it at home or you must buy rice flour sold specially for making kolukattais.

How to prepare rice flour for making Kozhukattai/Kolukattai

Wash and soak raw rice for 2 hours. Drain the water well, spread it on a cloth for 15 minutes and grind it to a fine powder. You can give it to the rice mill or powder it in the mixie/food processor. Dry it well in the sun or shade. Sieve it and store it in an air-tight container and use whenever required. Now rice flour for kozhukatti is ready. (You do not have to fry the rice flour as you do for idiyappam.)

Ingredients needed

Rice flour -1 cup
Jaggery - 1 cup
Coconut -1 cup grated
Cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp
Ghee -1 tsp

Method

Now heat 1 cup of water, add a tsp of oil to it and then add the prepared rice flour stirring continuously so that it does not form lumps. Cook for 5 minutes.

Knead it into a soft dough. ( mix little water with a tsp of oil and have it besides you). If needed your can sprinkle that water and knead the dough well.

Cover it with a wet cloth and keep it aside.

For the stuffing

Melt the jaggery in half a cup of water and filter to remove impurities.

Heat jaggery and when it starts boiling, add grated coconut and a tsp of ghee. Cook till it leaves the sides of the pan. Add cardamom powder and mix well. Now your stuffing is ready. When it cools a little, make small balls out of it and keep it aside.

Now your jaggery stuffings are ready. 

Preparation of Kozhukattai/kolukattais
 

Now take the rice flour dough and make small balls. Grease your palms with oil, keep the dough and flatten it into round shape with the other hand.

You can dip your fingers in the water+ oil mix if needed to make it easier. Now place the jaggery ball on it and close it.

Repeat the process for all the rice flour balls. If you have excess jaggery balls/stuffings, do not worry, you can eat it as such. I love it

Arrange all the prepared Kozhukattais on a greased idli plate and steam cook for ten minutes or till done.Wait for 10 minutes to cool down and then take it out. Delicious Kozhukattais are ready.
Enjoy Vinayaga Chathurti with delicious Kozhukattai/kolukattais. You will get around 12-15 kozhukattais for this measurement.