Traditional Sri Lankan food always makes
me very happy, hungry and ready to eat. Most of it involves very
simple ingredients like rice and coconut.
One dish that is made from coconut and
rice flour is called Pittu. My mother says that Pittu is her favorite
dish to eat and will gladly eat it every day.... I am totally ready to
do that as well.
Pittu comes to Sri Lanka from the Kerala region of India and is known as Puttu or Putu
there. The recipes I have read about the Kerala version is made with
slightly different ingredients, but this recipe is how Sri Lankans make
and eat Pittu.
Pittu is traditionally eaten for
breakfast in Sri Lanka. Now a days it is also eaten for lunch or dinner
since people are off and rushing to work and school in the morning and
cannot eat a leisurely long breakfast.
The process of making pittu is simply
mixing coconut with the rice flour to form a "crumbled texture"
mixture. Then that mixture is placed in the cylinder tube of the Pittu
steamer and steamed for about 5-6 minutes and it comes out as a solid
Pittu tube. You can use either red or white rice flour to make pittu so
it is a wonderful gluten-free dish.
The pittu is then eaten with warmed coconut milk, lunu miris and any spicy meat,
fish or vegetable curry. I love that such simple ingredients can
create beautiful and delicious food. Now that's something to really
celebrate!
Ingredients:
5 cups desiccated coconut
1 (15oz) can coconut milk
1 can hot water (use the coconut milk can to measure)
2 tsp salt
8 cups rice flour
Directions:
Step 1: Place the desiccated
coconut in bowl and pour coconut milk and can of hot water over it. Mix
well and allow coconut to soak for 20-30 minutes.
Step 2: Sift together rice flour and salt. Set aside.
Step 3: Set up steamer with hot
water and bring pittu steamer to a boil until you see the steam coming
out of the top of the steamer.
Step 4: In a new bowl, take up cup of sifted rice
flour/salt mixture and mix with 2/3cup soaked coconut mixture. Use
fingers to create a "crumble texture".
Note: This texture
is really important. It should be a dry crumble so sprinkle a little
flour mixture to make sure you get the right texture.
Step 5: Take the steamer tube and
place the piece that separates the tube part from the steamer part.
It's the little metal circle in the photo shown here that has holes.
These holes allow the steam to go up through the pittu mixture and steam
it all together into a tube.
Note: We
recommend that you wash this round metal piece between each steaming
because it will get pittu residue on it and
that will prevent the steam from going through the holes. I simply
placed a small bowl of cold water to dip it into and clean off quickly
before resetting it in the pittu steamer.
Step 6: Then fill the tube with
the dry crumble mixture of the rice flour and coconut until you get to
the top. Place the lid on the steamer tube and back on the base that
is full of boiling water.
Step 7: Steam pittu for 5 minutes
until you see steam coming out of the top of the pittu steamer. Then
allow it to steam for about 1-2 more minutes. That means the steam has
worked it's way through all the pittu ingredients and steamed everything
together. Take the pittu tube off the base and use a wooden
dowel/pole to push the pittu out of the steamer.
Step 8: Repeat until all the mixture is used and you have cooked your pittu.
Note: My mother says that
once you are steaming the pittu, work on making the crumble for the
next tube of pittu. It's best to work in batches otherwise if you mix
all the flour/salt with the soaked coconut at one time the crumbles
mixture becomes too tough or soggy.
This amount of pittu will serve 6-8 people or more. Eat it with, coconut milk gravy, lunu miris and any spicy meat, fish or vegetable curry.
Note: To make the coconut gravy just mix 1
can (15oz) with 1 tsp of salt. Stir well and this is poured over the
pittu and eaten with the other condiments and curries.