Paal Kozhukattai with Jaggery and Dairy Milk

Paal Kozhukattai is a traditional sweet recipe made from Tamilnadu. Paal Kozhukattai is also known as Koozh Kozhukattai. 

Koozh means thin slurry in Tamil which can be both sweet and salt, in this recipe, sweet koozh is made with thin rice flour slurry, jaggery and milk. Kozhukattai means rice flour dumpling in Tamil. Both are cooked together and make a delicious sweet dessert. 

The recipe that I'm sharing today is the simple version of paal kozhukattai which Amma used to make as an evening snack on our school days. Paal kozhukattai is one of my all time favorites and make them often in the evenings instead of chai. 

In our home, for paal kozhukattai, we used to make the tiny kozhukattai in log shapes. Amma used to say those tiny log shaped kozhukattai blends well with koozh( sweet slurry) and tastes delicious. Even i started to realize that when i started making the paal kozhukattai in both round and log shapes. 

But it is really up to you to make the shape you like. Whatever the shape,make sure to make them in tiny shapes so that it blends well with the sweet slurry. If the kozhukattai is too big, then it tastes bland. 

Rice Flour

For kozhukattai, use the fine variety of rice flour or idiyappam flour.Usually i used to get mine from the Indian Grocery store for kozhukattai. In Canada here, even Walmart carries the rice flour in the Indian section, but it's not very smooth and doesn't work for kozhukattai.

The rice flour should be super fine. Adding hot water into the flour itself should make it almost cooked. That's essential to make a smooth shape. 

Jaggery 

The color of the paal kozhukattai depends on the color of the jaggery used in the recipe. Use dark color jaggery for bright paal kozhukattai. I have used light colored jaggery so it looks pale in color.

Milk

As i have mentioned earlier, we like to make this often and don't wait for any festive season to make this, we stick to the dairy milk for paal kozhukattai for easy making. But i have seen many use coconut milk for paal kozhukattai. If you prefer that, feel free to use that. But i never had paal kozhukattai with coconut milk.

Also, you can make this without any milk too, then you can't name it as " Paal Kozhukattai" ! In our hometown(Tirunelveli), this koozh kozhuttai(without milk) is made as prasadam along with sakkarai pongal during kovil kodai(a yearly festival ) in Amman Temple

Few tips for beginners

1. Adding the rice flour slurry into the paal kozhukattai helps to make it homogeneous. Otherwise the kozhukattai and sweet liquid are not bind together. Based on your taste or how thick you want, you can add more or less of the rice flour slurry
2. When i was kid, i preferred to have  more koozh (sweet liquid) in my paal kozhukattai than the kozhukattai. So Amma used to make paal kozhukattai with less amount of kozhukattai. So depending on your preference, you can make more kozhukkatai or koozh in your Paal kozhukattai.
3. As i said before, if you like to have more koozh(sweet liquid) then make sure to add more water and jaggery.   
4. It thickens with time, so i would recommend adding the hot milk into the paal kozhukattai just before serving. 

Paal Kozhukattai

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 15 mins | Serves : 2 
Recipe Category: Sweet | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Paal Kozhukattai,Milk Kozhukattai Paal Kozhukattai is a traditional sweet recipe made from Tamilnadu. Paal Kozhukattai is also known as Koozh Kozhukattai.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients

Rice flour - 1/2 cup
Sesame oil - 1/2 tsp
Salt - a pinch
Boiling water - a little less of 1/2 cup

Jaggery -  1/3 to 1/2 cup

Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp

Milk - 1/2 to 1 cup

Procedure

First measure the rice flour and add into a large bowl, next add a pinch of salt and sesame oil.

Mix it all well together with your fingers. Then bring the water into rolling boil and add it into the rice flour.

Mix it with a back of the wooden ladle. Rest it for 2 to 3 mins. Then mix it with your hands and make a soft dough. 

Take a small pinch of dough, roll to a ball first and then roll into small log shaped kozhukattai. 

Do the same for the almost all of the dough and keep aside a small ball of dough(around 2 tbsp which we use later.) Heat 2 cups of water in a sauce.

When the water is boiling, ddd the rolled kozhukattai into it and keep it undisturbed for a few mins. Once the kozhukattai is cooked, it floats on top and also it became shiny.

Grate the jaggery and add it into the kozhukattai and let it melts completely. 

Now take that small ball of dough which we kept aside, add a couple of tbsp of water and make it as thin slurry. 

That that dough slurry into the kozhukattai and mix it well. The consistency of the paal kozhukattai will be thick in a few mins. 

Now switch off the flame and add the boiled & cooled milk along with cardamom powder.  Give a good mix. 

Tasty and creamy Paal Kozhukattai is ready ! 

Notes:

• Depends on the liquid part in the paal kozhukattai add more or less of the jaggery.
• Switch off the flame and then add the milk because there is a mild chance of curdling by the little amount of  salt in the jaggery and kozhukattai. 

The below pic was taken in yellow light around the year 2011. Don't want to remove this while updating the post, so here it is :-)