Chettinad paal Kozhukattai recipe|How to make paal kozhukattai

Paal kozhukattai is a famous dessert in Chettinad region. It's made up of small rice ball dumplings cooked and tossed in sweetened coconut and jaggery sauce.

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Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Indian

Keyword: celebration, desserts, festival, Indian sweet, Sweet

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes

Servings:

Ingredients

To make kozhukattai (rice dumplings):

½ cup of idiyappam flour or rice flour
3/4 cup cup of water
½ teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of ghee

To make the sweetened sauce:

2 cups of milk
½ cup of water + ¼ cup
½ cup of coconut milk
½ cup of jaggery
1 teaspoon of cardamom powder

Instructions

Making jaggery syrup is the first step. Add the ½ cup of grated jaggery into a pan with ¼ cup of water. Once the jaggery melts and combines with the water it will form a syrupy consistency. Switch off the flame and allow the jaggery syrup to cool a bit.
For making the kozhukattai, heat a pan with ¾ cup of water. Add the salt and ghee and mix it. Once the water is heated add the flour and mix it
Mix the flour without any lumps until it forms is stiff dough without sticking to the pan. Once the dough is formed transfer it to a plate and switch off the flame. Once the dough is warm enough to handle, knead the dough for 3-5 minutes until you get smooth crack free dough.
Apply some ghee on both the hands (palm) and take a small portion of the dough and make it small round balls/dumplings. Similarly make all the dough to small round balls (kozhukattai) and cover these balls with a damp cloth to avoid drying. Meanwhile heat a heavy bottom pan with 2 cups of milk and ½ cup water.
Once the milk starts boiling add the balls gently into the milk. As soon as they have added, the balls sit at the bottom of the pan. Cover and cook for 15 minutes on a medium flame so that the balls comes up and floats on top which means the dumplings/balls (kozhukattai) have cooked perfectly.
Now add the ½ cup of thick coconut milk and cook it for another 2 minutes. The sauce would have thickened by now.
Finally add some freshly grounded cardamom pods and add the cooled sugar syrup and mix it well. Switch off the flame after 5 minutes. The kozhukattai’s must have absorbed some sweetened jaggery sauce and ready to eat.
You can serve this paal kozhukatti while it is still warm or chilled also.

Notes

To get a crack free smooth kozhukattai balls, kneading the dough is the important step.
You can replace the jaggery syrup with the sugar or condensed milk.
If you are afraid to add the kozhukattai’s directly to the milk then you can steam cook the kozhukattai separately and then add it to the jaggery sauce.
Instead of coconut milk you can also use almond milk or cashew milk. For the perfectly cooked kozhukattai, cook it on a medium flame until the kozhukattai’s floats on top.
Cooling the jaggery syrup is an important step. Because it may spoil the milk if the syrup is added warm. Instead of cardamom powder you can use any other essences for flavoring the kozhukattai’s.
The sauce tends to get thicker, once it starts to cool down, so switch off the flame while the sauce is in running consistency. If you find the sauce is too thick, then dilute it with little water and reheat it.

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