Kerala Puttu Recipe – How To Make Soft Rice Flour Puttu

• Instant Puttu flour – 1 cup  ( I used Double Horse brand white puttu podi)
• Fresh grated coconut – 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp
• Salt – as needed
• Hot water – as needed
• Puttu maker – refer the above picture

For serving :
Kadala curry OR Sugar, ghee and cardamom powder

• In a wide plate, take the puttu flour. No need to sieve the flour. Add salt and mix well.

• Heat 1 cup of water in a bowl till water starts to bubble. No need to roll boil the water.

• Sprinkle this water little by little and mix the rice flour with a wooden ladle. There would be lumps in the flour. No issues. After all the puttu flour turns slightly moist, stop adding the water. Make sure you don’t see any dry flour. When the mixture becomes warm, use your finger tips and break the lumps roughly. Do it lightly. Do not apply pressure.

• Take a handful of flour and press it between your fist, it should hold its shape. When you press the flour with your thumb finger a little harder, it should crumble. This is the right consistency. Do not make the flour too wet or too dry. This consistency is more important to get a soft puttu.

• Now add 2 tbsp of freshly grated coconut to the rice flour. Mix well. In a medium sized mixie jar, take a handful of puttu flour and pulse it once or twice ( Pulse for just 2 seconds) and grind it to remove the lumps. You should grind the puttu flour only in batches. DO NOT grind all the flour together. It will become sticky with full of lumps. We need fluffy, feathery soft flour after grinding. So do it only in batches. You may need to grind 3-4 times. Collect all the ground flour in a wide bowl.

• Again check the consistency of flour by holding it in your fist as mentioned in the previous step.Now your puttu flour is ready to steam.

• In the bottom of puttu maker i.e Puttu kudum, add 3 cups of water and let it roll boil. In the mean time, take the long cylindrical puttu kutti and put the perforated steel disc on the bottom of the cylinder. First layer it with 2 tbsp of grated coconut and above that add a handful of puttu flour. Do not press the flour. Put it loosely. Repeat this till the rim of Puttu kutti. Finish it with coconut layer. Close the puttu maker with the lid.

• Place it over the boiling water. Place it lightly else it will become difficult to remove the cylinder after steaming. So place it gently but securely.

• Let the Puttu cook for 5 minutes in high flame ( Do not cook the puttu for more time because it will become dry if you over cook). After the steam starts to come out from the lid holes vigorously with a nice smell of cooked puttu, switch off the flame and let it rest for 2 minutes. Then remove the rod shaped puttu kutti ( careful) and place it in a plate. Use the steel rod and push the bottom of puttu maker. Puttu will come off easily with the perforated disc. Remove the disc and enjoy the puttu with kadala curry OR simply mix the puttu with sugar, cardamom powder and ghee.

Enjoy !

• Addition of hot water and grinding the puttu flour in mixie helps to give soft puttu. If you want to follow the authentic method, just use the plain water and mix till right consistency. Sieve the flour in a puttu sieve if having or just break the lumps using your hands.Proceed for steaming.
• If you don’t own a puttu maker, just fill the grated coconut & puttu flour in layers inside a small tumbler and steam in idli pot for 5-7 minutes OR you can just spread a layer of coconut in all the idli plates and place a layer of puttu flour above it. Steam it for 5 minutes and remove.It resembles idli shaped puttu.
• You can also use an empty coconut shell for steaming puttu.
• If you don’t like to use store bought puttu flour, you can make it at home. For this, soak raw rice in water for 2 hours. Dry in a shade over the white cloth for 5 minutes. Grind it to a slightly coarse powder and  dry roast the flour till it starts to leave vapour.Remove the flour and let it cool down. Then use it for making puttu.
• Do not cook the puttu for long time. It will give you dry, hard puttu.
• Adding grated coconut in between layers gives softness and better taste to the puttu. If you don’t want to use more coconut, just skip this step.
• You can also use processed store bought rice flour i.e Idiyappam flour.