Sweet Puttu with home made rice flour | Vella Puttu | Navarathri recipe

My long time wish to make vella puttu comes true today. Vella puttu is the tradiational prasadam to offer on Friday in Navarathi season. To make puttu from scratch is really tiresome work,but the end result is worth for all the efforts.As you have been reading my blog regularly, you might know how much i love puttu, so without any short cuts, i make this puttu in our old fashioned method.
To make the process simple, i split the work into two days, yesterday itself i made the flour, therefore it's easy to prepare puttu today. Here i split the post into two section first let's see how to make the flour for puttu, you can use the same flour for making murukku, seedai & athirasam too. Bookmark this post , it will be useful for coming Diwali too :-). As i want to make note of each details, it becomes really lengthy post, if you're going to make this puttu with store brought flour, skip the first section.

Homemade Rice flour

Preparation Time : 2 hrs | Cooking Time : 20 mins | Makes : 11/3 cup 
Recipe Category: Basic | Recipe Cuisine: Indian

Ingredients
Raw Rice - 1 cup

Procedure

Wash the rice in running water twice and soak it for 11/2 to 2 hrs.Drain the water from rice and spread it on neat kitchen towel for 20 mins.After 20 mins, the rich should be damp, not completely  dry, at this stage, transfer the rice into mixie jar.Grind into fine powder, then transfer the rice flour into sieve  and sieve it till no flour pass through the sieve.After sieving, put the leftover rice granule into mixie jar and grind into smooth powder and add it into the already sieved flour.If you notice any large granule after the 2nd grinding, put it in sieve and sieve, but mine is smooth ,so i dont do that 2nd time.Heat the kadai in medium flame and add the sieved flour, roast in medium flame continuously for 12 -15 mins, all the moisture from the flour evaporates and the flour is like dry sand. At this stage, you can able to draw a line with the flourThat's it your home made flour is ready.

Now let's see now to make puttu.Hope you will find this useful and try this on coming friday.

Vella Puttu

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 15 mins | Serves : 2 
Recipe Category: Sweet | Recipe Cuisine: Indian

Ingredients
Homemade Rice flour - 1/2 cup
Powdered jaggery -1/4 cup
Cardamom - 2
Grated coconut - 1 tbsp
Ghee -1/2 tsp
Cashew (broken) - 1 tsp
Turmeric - a fat pinch
Water- 1/4 cup approx
Salt - apinch

Procedure

Measure and take the flour , add turmeric powder & salt  in the water and add it in the flour slowly and mix well.Keep on adding water and mix it. The flour should hold its shape when you press it with your fist and again it should be crumble when you crumble it with your fingers.That's the correct stage.Place the flour in steamer and steam it for 10 mins in medium flame.Once the flour is cooked, you can able to form  a thread when you take a pinch of flour in between your thumb and fore finger and roll it back & forth.Remove from steamer and allow to cool completely.Heat a kadai with jaggery and water(just enough to cover the jaggery) and allow to melt.When the jaggery syrup comes to boil, add the crushed cardamom.Once the syrup reaches soft ball consistency(pour some syrup in water,it settles at bottom and you can able to roll as ball), add the puttu.Now add the grated coconut and give a good mix. Now in a tempering pan, heat the ghee and roast the cashew till it becomes golden brown.Add the cashews into the puttu , mix well and it's ready for offering.Tasty and traditional Vella Puttu is ready.

Notes:

•  This puttu has medium sweetness.
• If you want you can extra 2 tbsp of jaggery to increase the sweetness.
• If you find more lumps in puttu , pulse it once in mixie before adding into the jaggery syrup.
• It looks sticky when it's warm. Once it's cooled ,it will be non sticky and looks like dry sand.
• I used my idli plate to steam the puttu.