Β "Puttu" or steamed rice cake is a breakfast dish that is very popular in South India, especially in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It is a steamed savory rice cake with grated coconut. The thing about Puttu is that you either love it or don't like it. Luckily, everyone in my family loves it. It goes well with many popular curries: Kadala (black chana dal), curry, cherupayar (green moong dal or horse gram), chicken stew, banana, or even plain sugar. I will post the recipe for the curries in upcoming posts.
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What is special about Puttu Rice cake?
- Puttu is a complete powerhouse breakfast. If you have Puttu for one meal, it is so filling that you don't have to have anything else for the rest of the day.
- It is also healthy because we use steam to cook it and no oil is used in the preparation!
- The Puttu podi or rice flour used in the preparation is easily available in most Indian grocery stores. Using the store-bought puttu powder (rice powder) makes the puttu preparation easier.
- Puttu goes with many curries as shown in some of the pictures below, if nothing you can just have it with a banana or just sugar.
- Being very fine in texture the Puttu easily absorbs the flavored curries and tastes heavenly.
How to make the Puttu Rice cake?
Puttu steamer or Puttu maker
To make Puttu, we need a special cooker/steamer called Puttu maker. It has two parts to it. The bottom vessel is a steamer where you add water for steaming. The other is a cylindrical compartment for filling the puttu mixture which sits on top of the steamer with a circular partition and pores for letting steam into it. Keep the bottom vessel with water ready to boil as you prepare the flour.
Puttu Flour preparation
Mix the readymade rice flour or Puttu podi with warm water and salt, it should be wet enough to come together and feel like wet sand to build a sand castle. First, add about a tablespoon of grated coconut to the bottom of the cylindrical steamer and then half a cup of rice flour mixture. Alternate the grated coconut and rice mixture and then close the lid when full. Place this on top of the bottom vessel which has boiling water that we started off with.
Steaming the Puttu
The steam will come out of the pores of the top lid after it cooks. This will take about five minutes. Take the cylindrical cooker off and push the puttu out of the puttu maker using a rolling pin or any handle of a wooden ladle. The Puttu or rice cake breaks in the place where the coconut was filled as seen in the picture below. The end product is small little rice cakes or Puttu which can eaten with different types of curry or even with banana or simply adding a little sugar.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Can you make the Puttu podi at home? Yes, you can make it at home, soak raw rice for 6 to 7 hours in water, and drain. Powder the rice in a food processor. I normally use the rice powder from the store.
- Can you store the leftover Puttus and re-heat them? Sure you can re-steam in the Puttu maker or just add some water and microwave in a container that is closed.
Puttu - Savory steamed rice cake
Equipment
- Puttu maker
Ingredients
- 6 cups Rice Flour Puttu Podi (Rice Flour)
- 2 cups coconut grated
- 4 cups water Luke warm
- 1 tsp salt or to taste
Instructions
- Take Puttu podi or rice powder in a large bowl and add salt to it.
- Sprinkle luke warm water and continue to mix it.
- At the end of mixing , the consistency should be like wet sand to build a sand castle at the beach π
- Take a Puttu maker and fill water in the the bottom container (steamer) and bring it to a boil.
- Fill the top (cylindrical) part of the puttu maker alternately with shredded coconut and Β 2 tbsp of puttu mixture until it is filled to the Β very top.
- Close the lid and place it on the steamer.
- Wait for about 5 - 6Β minutes until steam starts to come out from the openings or pores of the lid.
- Lift the top portion of Β the puttu maker Β out of Β the steamer by using the wooden handle and push the puttus (rice cakes) out using the pushing stick (as shown in the picture) Β into a container.
- Puttus are now ready to be served. It is best eatenΒ withΒ kadala (black chana dal) curry, cheruvayar (horse gram ) curry ,chicken stew , banana or even sugar! Enjoy π
What a coincidence Nisha.. i just had puttu for breakfast π
That's awesome! Lavs ..happy to hear that π
Awesome recipe! Love it, it looks so yummy! The pictures are making me want to eat some right now, so tempting! π
Glad you liked them and sending them your way virtually π Thank you very much Latha!
my family too love puttu very much. i like ur puttu maker.
That's great Deepa ! Thank you !
I've never seen such a device for cooking rice. Very interesting.
The dish looks very tasty. π
It is true very few people know of the puttu and the puttu maker . There are some Sri lankan restaurants in the bay area as well (San Ramon) which used to have them and they were quite a hit. Thank you Ronit!
Will definitely give this recipe a try, sounds interesting π
Hope you can give it a try Sangita! It's really yum!
My favorite..my favorite combo is with Kadala curry
Yes dear mine too, I need to update pictures with that combo when I make some !! That's the ultimate combination !
I have never had puttu. It looks delicious teamed with the dal in the photo xx
Thanks Dippy, I hope you get a chance to try it out sometime , it goes well with any of these curries !
I shall keep it in mind xx
Never heard of this,very interesting recipe...Loved the presentation.
Thank you very much Anshu! Hope you get a chance to try this sometime π
Ya...I will love to try it and make it aswell
First time I heard of puttu. Looks great and easy to make.
Thank you so much ! Yes it is very easy to make as well
Never had it. Will try for sure. Looks tempting π
Thank you Pooja! hope you get a chance to try it sometime!
Definitely will try
My favorite π
Thank you Joshi! same here π
great piece to read!! Thanks for sharing this amazing recipe!!
btw love your blog! do you use any apps to edit the pics?
Thank you so much ChΓ«rnaja! You are very welcome and appreciate your love;y comments. The pictures in this post was taken on my phone and i used the iphoto on my mac. For some other pics on this blog I sometimes use photoshop
Puttu & kadala curry, my all time favorite!
Looks so beautiful & tempting!!
Mine as well Megala, the ultimate combination right ? Thank you so much!
Yes, it is!
Just 2 months back I learned Puttu rice recipe from a Kerala friend. Just loved it.
Oh thats lovely Sneha! I am so glad you loved it . We are big puttu lovers at my home π
Now we too
Hey! I wanted to let you know that I nominated you for the Mystery Blogger Award. You can check it out on my blog - . Congratulations!
Thank you sp much Sneha, appreciate it !
I can take this any time of the day with any combination of flavours. Beautiful share.
Thank you very much Sumith , so true right, any combination will work for most of the puttu lovers!
I've never made anything like this so it was fascinating to read!
Thank you Christy for your lovely comment! I can imagine for someone new to this it might seem like really fascinating :). It's a huge cleanup after the cooking process is complete as well, but very well worth it π
Fascinating recipe! I am sure it's yummy, nutricious and filling!
Thank you Mallika! indeed it is a very fulfilling dish taste and nutrition as well π
Mission: Find a Puttu maker
Hope you can find it online π that's true the puttu maker is definitely required to make puttus!
Love puttu. Have always had this with sweet on the side. Love it that you have savory sides. Looks wholesome and delicious ..
Thank you so much! Neetha am glad you have tried it with sweet, the savory sides are really good I especially recommend it with black chana curry (or kadala curry)