Paal Kozhukattai

Paal Kozhukattai is a traditional Indian Sweet. The recipe follows three simple steps of preparing jaggery syrup, making small rice balls and finally preparing paal kozhukattai. I used jaggery for making the recipe. It can be altered with Sugar or cane sugar of choice. in such case, skip the first step and sugar can be added directly once the rice balls are cooked. Also, idiyappam flour can be used for making paal kozhukattai. In the below recipe, I used rice flour for making it

Ingredients to make Paal Kozhukattai:

Rice Flour – 1 cup (200grams)
Jaggery Powder – 1 1/2 cup (300 grams)
Milk – 1 1/2 cup (300ml) [milk + water : 1 1/2 cup + 1/2 cup]
coconut milk – 1/2 cup(100ml)
cardamom powder -1 tsp
gingely oil as required
scrapped coconut – 1 tbsp
Few saffron strands
water as required
salt as required

Method:

Step 1 – Jaggery Syrup Preparation:

in a vessel, add jaggery(300grams) and water (300ml))
boil till jaggery gets dissolved in water
switch off flame, filter impurities
keep this aside to come down to room temperature

Step 2 – Making Small Rice Balls:

Boil a cup of water (200ml)
take a bowl, add rice flour(200grams)
add boiling water partly in the bowl, mix it with a spoon
add a tsp of salt and a tbsp of scrapped coconut
pour water partly and start making a dough

Approximately 200 grams of rice flour requires 180ml of boiling water to prepare dough

apply some gingely oil in the palm
take a small portion of the dough and make a small ball
repeat making small balls

Step 3- Preparing Paal Kozhukattai:

in a vessel, add milk(300ml) + water(100ml) (1 1/2 cup +1/2 cup) and boil it
once the milk is boiled, add all the small rice balls we prepared gently inside the vessel
let it cook for 15 minutes on medium flame
saute occassionally
once the rice balls are cooked, it starts to pop up on the top surface

add the jaggery syrup(at room temperature), cardamom powder and stir it well
pour 1/2 a cup of coconut milk
let everything boil for 2-3 minutes
Take a small bowl, make rice paste by combining a tsp of rice flour with 2 tbsp of water. Add this paste in the vessel. This step is optional and is helpful to increase thickness consistency of paal kozhukattai
let it cook for 2 minutes
add few saffron strands and switch off flame