← Nouns Cooking · Indian

Ingredients

• 250 g puttu flour (roasted rice flour)
• ½ tsp Salt
• 180 ml water, about
• 100 g freshly grated coconut
• 2 ripe bananas, to serve (optional)
• 2 tbsp sugar, to serve (optional)

Method

1. Mix the salt into the water. Sprinkle it over the flour a little at a time, rubbing it in with your fingertips, until the flour feels like damp breadcrumbs and holds together when squeezed but crumbles again when poked.
2. Pulse the moist flour in a blender for a few seconds (or rub through a coarse sieve) to break up any lumps. Rest it for 10 min.
3. Bring water to the boil in the base of a puttu maker (or a pot that fits a steamer). Drop the perforated disc into the puttu tube.
4. Layer 2 tbsp coconut, then loose flour to fill a third of the tube, then coconut again, repeating until full and finishing with coconut. Don’t press it down.
5. Fit the tube on the steaming base and cook for 5–7 min, until steam pours steadily out of the top lid holes.
6. Push the puttu out onto a plate with the handle of a wooden spoon. Serve hot with mashed banana and sugar, or with kadala (black chickpea) curry.

Tips

• No puttu maker? Steam the layered mix in small cups or a coconut shell in a steamer for 8–10 min.
• Too much water makes heavy, gummy puttu; the flour should feel only just damp.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Hebbar's Kitchen Archana's Kitchen