This is one of the Important festivals in our culture. We South Indians make kozukkattai as the main offering to Lord Ganesaa in this thread let us see some of the Naivedyams for Vinayagar Chathurththi. In our house my mother used to prepare lots of kozukkattai varieties and many more naivedyams. I will share all of them here Actually when ever we say 'Pilliyar' we use to think 'kozukkattai' first so let us start with that
To Make Kozhukkattai Mavu To make kozukkatai we need poornam and the outer dough. first let us see how to prepare 'male mavu' For the outer cover: Rice flour -3 cups salt a pinch Water 3 cups Oil or ghee - 1 table spoon Method: Bring the water to boil in a heavy bottomed pan. Add a pinch of salt. Reduce the flame to medium (or you can remove it from the fire) and add the oil and rice flour and stir well to get a smooth dough. Take off the flame and mix further to remove lumps thoroughly. Cover and allow it to cool. This is the base thing we have to do first, before we prepare poornam. Note: We have to prepare the outer cover with rice flour. Some will prepare like chappati dough with wheat flour and they fill the filling ( poornam) and fry the Kozhukkatai. you can also do the same.
Kozhukattai Filling we can fill sweet as well as spice filling inside the kozukkattai. Sweet fillings are: 1. Coconut filing 2. Sesame Filling 3. Channa dal Filling Spice Filling: 1. udadh dal filling Let us see one by one
Kozhukattai - Coconut Filling Ingredients: Grated coconut - 1cup Jaggery - 1/2 cup Cardamom powder ½ sp Rice flour – 1 table spoon Ghee ½ sp Method: Melt jaggery with a little water, in a kadai on a medium flame. Strain it after it dissolves in water to remove dirt and sand. Again pour it in a kadai and bring it to a boil. Add coconut, ghee and cardamom powder and cook for 2 minutes. The filling will become thicker when it cools. If needed add rice flour to make it thick. Transfer to a container. Let is cool and then make small balls out of it and keep ready to make kozhukattai . Note: If you want to make rich, you can add small cashew pieces in the poornam.
Kozhukattai - Sesame Filling. Ingredients: Sesame seeds (Til) - 1/2 cup jaggery - 1/2 cup Cardamom powder – ½ sp Method: Dry roast the sesame seeds till they crackle. Allow to cool and grind in a mixer with jaggery. Mix with powdered jaggery and cardamom. Fill this in the kozakattai chuppu and make Sesame seeds.
Kozhukattai - Sweet Channa Dal Filling Ingredients: Channa dal (kadalai paruppu) - 1/2 cup jaggery - 1/2 cup cardamom - 1 no Grated coconut - 1 table spoon Ghee 1 tab. sp Method: Wash and cook channa dal with 3/4 cup water on a medium flame. Allow to cool and grind with coconut and jaggery. Add cardamom powder and grind to form dough. In a pan pour ghee and put the ground dough. Just cook for 2 min and remove it from the fire. Now make small balls out of it. Make ‘kozhakattai choppu ‘ and keep this as filling and close it. Steam it and your ‘ sweet channa kozhakattai ‘ is ready.
Kuzhukattai - Udad Filling Ingredients: For the urad dal filling Urad dal - 1/2 cup green chilly - 2 Red chilly- 2 curry leaves - 1 twig(finely chopped) Oil - 1 table spoon Asafetida - 1/4 teaspoon salt to taste mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon Method: Wash and soak urad dal for 1/2 hour. Drain well and grind coarsely adding salt, green chilies and red chilly and asafetida. Add less water for grinding. Now steam the ground mixer like idly. Remove from the idly cooker and bring it to room temp. Now again put it in a mixture grinder and just run for a min. Or you can do this by hand. Heat oil in a kadai and add mustard seeds. When it crackles add the curry leaves and the urad dal pooranam. Cook on a low flame stirring well for just 2 minutes. Remove it from the fire and bring it to room temp. Now make small balls out of it. Make ‘kozhakattai choppu ‘ and keep this as filling and close it. Steam it and your ‘ udad kozhakattai ‘ is ready.
To Make Kozhukkattai Mavu 2 Rice 1 cup Oil 1 sp Salt a pinch Method: Wash and soak rice for 1/2 hour. Then grind it with less water in the mixie very nicely. In a kadai add little oil and pour this with a pinch of salt. Keep the flame low. Stir continuously till it becomes soft and lump. Switch off the stove. Close and keep it. After 10 min, you can use it for making the outer cover of the modhagam. This type of outer mavu is more soft than the first one.