Puttu - Whole wheat flour and coconut roll

Cooking time: 10 min. / 3 min.Difficulty: easy

This soft, a little crunchy and juicy roll belonged to my favourite breakfasts in Kerala. It is made of rice flour or whole wheat flour, which I prefer, because of the colour effect. Puttu is served with banana and honey or sugar. Or a salty variant is with papad and some Indian curries.

Process

Salt the flour to taste and sprinkle with lukewarm water, just a little bit. Spread your fingers apart and mix flour with tips of your fingers. Then sprinkle it again and continue processing the same way. Like this repeat it around 5 times, until the flour is moist and crumbly. There should be no lumps. When you compress it in your palm, it should stick together, if you compress it harder, it should crumble.

Take top part of puttu maker and start filling it gently. Firstly with around 1 cm layer of coconut, then approximatelly 3 cm layer of moist flour. They rotate layers of coconut and flour 3 times. The first and the last layer is coconut. They do not stuff it hard, as it is important to keep it airy for fluffiness, softness and for the steam to get in.

Bring water to a boil in the bottom part of puttu maker.

Put the filled top of puttu maker on the bottom part with boiling water in, cover with lid and steam on a high flame. As soon as you can see the steam getting completely through from the top, it is ready. It takes around 2 minutes.

Push the roll out gently on a plate.

Serve with bananas and honey. Local style is to mash the bananas with hands and together with honey mix with puttu - by hands as well :) And it is nice with curries and papad too.

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