Photo: Gannu03 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Tamilnadu · Breakfast

Paal Puttu (பால் புட்டு)

Traditional 76. Paal Puttu recipe

🧺 Ingredients

• 2 cups puttu flour (store-bought rice puttu flour, or homemade — raw rice roasted and ground to fine flour)
• 1 cup water (approximately — for right moisture)
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 cup fresh coconut, grated (for layering in the steamer)
• 1 fresh coconut, grated — or 400 ml full-fat coconut milk
• 3 cups water (for extraction)
• 3 tbsp jaggery powder (adjust)
• ¼ tsp cardamom powder
• Pinch of salt
• 2 ripe bananas (Poovan/Rasthali variety), sliced into rounds
• 2 tbsp additional jaggery (optional — for extra sweetness)

👩‍🍳 How to make Paal Puttu

1. In a wide bowl, combine puttu flour and salt.
2. Add water gradually, tablespoon by tablespoon, while mixing with your fingers — the flour should just barely come together when squeezed in your fist.
3. It must NOT be a wet dough — the consistency is "moist crumble." Correctly moistened puttu flour holds its shape when pressed but crumbles easily when dropped.
4. Rest 10 minutes.
5. Fill the cylindrical puttu maker (puttu kuzhavi) as follows: add 2 tbsp grated coconut at the base, then fill with 4–5 tbsp puttu flour (pressed in loosely — do NOT pack tightly), then another 2 tbsp coconut, then another layer of flour, ending with coconut.
6. This layering creates the signature coconut-rice alternating layers visible when the puttu is unmolded.
7. Place the filled puttu cylinder on top of a pot of boiling water or a pressure cooker vessel (without the pressure weight).
8. Steam builds up and passes through the puttu.
9. Steam on high heat for 5–8 minutes until white steam jets out from the top of the cylinder — this indicates the puttu is fully cooked through.
10. Tap the puttu out onto a plate — it should unmold in a single cylinder.
11. Extract two pressings of coconut milk from fresh grated coconut (as per idiappam recipe technique — blend with water, strain).
12. Heat thin coconut milk with jaggery over low heat until jaggery dissolves.
13. Add cardamom and salt.
14. Stir.
15. Add thick coconut milk off heat.
16. Place 1–2 puttu cylinders per plate.
17. Pour warm sweetened coconut milk alongside or over the puttu.
18. Arrange sliced banana rounds next to the puttu.
19. For extra indulgence, add a spoonful of jaggery directly on the puttu.

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