Simply Cooking and Health: Scrambled wheat flour with shredded coconut (Puttu or Pittu)

The steamed pittu

Serves: 4
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 5 to 7 minutes

Scrambled flour steamer

In this preparation you make dough out of steamed wheat flour and crumble it into small pellets or balls and steam it.

This dish can be made out of any kind of flour such as all purpose flour, whole meal wheat flour, rice flour, whole meal rice flour, finger millet flour and almost any ground cereal. Probably brown rice flour is the healthiest but diabetics will prefer finger millet flour. But all purpose wheat flour is the tastiest for this dish.

Pittu

Today I am going to make a dish where wheat flour is crumbled and steamed with shredded coconut. We always eat baked bread. This is going to be some kind of steamed bread. This resembles couscous in texture.

Things we need

A puttu steamer
Or simple steamer

A food processor

A roller pin to push the pittu out.

Steamed all purpose flour

Ingredients for my recipe

3 cups steamed flour

1 cup scraped coconut

1½ cups water

1 teaspoon salt

Shredded coconut

Preparation

Take out two or three tablespoon of flour and set it aside. Put the flour in a food processor add salt and do the pulse once or twice. Boil water in a kettle and keep. Now add about 1 cup of hot water through the spout and do the pulse couple of times.and run on speed one to form granules for one minute. If the flour forms into small granules now you are on the right track. Now run the food processor for 30 seconds. If you have something like this you are done.

This is the correct texture.

But if the granules are two small and in flour form you can add one or two table spoon of water and repeat the process of pulse and running the processor.

If the water is excessive it will form big balls like lumps. you will get something like this

or even like this

Using a food processor to scramble the flour. The flour is too lumpy.

Then you add some flour in stages and pulse the processor couple of times the dough will break down into small crumbles
if you run the machine flour will become a dough. If it becomes a dough remove it from the processor and break using the hands.put half or quarter of the dough back into the machine

Then you add some flour in stages and pulse the processor couple of times the dough will break down into small crumbles. The size of the crumbles can vary and it will not make any difference in the taste. But the crumbles should be smaller than ¼ of an inch and ideally closer to 1/8 of an inch. Add water to make the crumbles bigger and add flour to make the crumbles smaller. If you take your time and do it you cannot go wrong.

When you get the size of the crumbles to your liking then you are done.

Put the crumbled flour into a steamer and add one table spoon of grated coconut.

Our next step is to steam the crumbles. You can steam it in any kind of steamer such as electric steamer, pressure cooker etc.

I will show you the traditional steamer first and then an ordinary steamer.

Take barrel of the steamer and insert the bottom piece with the holes in it. Position this stopper with your fingers from the bottom of the barrel.

The parts of the steamer

Fill the bottom kettle with water up to half or slightly less. Put the empty barrel on top of the kettle. Let it heat up on the stove. It will fit snuggly and prevent wastage of steam.

In three to four minutes time you will see steam coming out from the top of the barrel. After the steam comes out from the top wait for about 10 seconds to let the steam get moment and fill the barrel. Reduce heat. Remove the barrel with oven gloves and keep on a plate.

Add one table spoon of scrapped coconut as the first layer in the barrel. This will prevent the crumbles from blocking the holes. The steam will pass through easily. Then add two table spoons of crumbles followed by one table spoon of scrapped coconut. Each time you add coconut or crumbles spread it out with the handle of a spatula or something similar. Repeat until the barrel is full. See that you finish with coconut. Then cover with the lid of the barrel. Bring it back to the heated kettle with boiling water.

Increase the heat. Within 5 to 8 minutes you will see the steam from the top with a smell of steamed flour.
Then quickly remove the barrel from the kettle using oven gloves and remove the lid and using the roller pin
from back of the barrel push the pittu to a plate slowly as shown in the picture.

You will need a roller pin or a long handled spoon to push the pittu out to a plate

Pushing the pittu out of the steamer using the roller pin

Repeat the process until you have used up all the crumbles.

The cooked pittu will look like this.

Next I will show you a much easier way of steaming. Here I will use this steamer.

Simple steamer

Spread the scrapped coconut at the bottom of the upper pan of the steamer. Take out about 3 table spoon of coconut and mix the balance with the crumbles gently with a fork. Add the remaining coconut on top and spread out evenly. Cover the pan with the lid.
Add water up to one quarter of the bottom pan and bring the water to the boil. In 5 to 6 minutes you will see team coming out from the top lid. Wait for about 20 seconds and remove the cooked pittu from the bottom pan. You are done.

The cooked pittu will look like this.

Cooked pittu by using the simple steamer

Puttu can be eaten with sambol

This is a traditional food common in South India and Sri Lanka. It is also called pittu or puttu and is eaten usually for breakfast or dinner. It can be eaten with sambol, curry, fried egg or even butter and sugar.

Level - 3

Making of pittu looks difficult but if you try you can make it. Making the crumble needs a little practice.
Medium level of work is needed. It is not simple either. You can steam the flour ahead and keep in the refrigerator in an air tight container in hot climate. You can keep for a month. If you keep out you will see fungus in the container in few days. In cold climate you can just keep outside in a container.