With Vinayakar chaturti just few hours away, here I am with my version of Instant pot Ammini Kozhukattai. It is simple, flavoured with curry leaves and coriader leaves and just perfect to snack on. Ammini Kozhakattai is traditionally made with left over kozhukattai dough, where in they are rolled into tiny balls and tossed in a powder made with chillies, lentils and coconut.
I make kozhukattai once or twice a year and everytime I make them, I pray that I get it perfect. It is usually uncertain until I get the perfectly steamed glistening modaks out of the steamer. But there’s always some left over dough and I always end up making ammini kozhukattais out of them.
I love eating these tiny balls of savoury kozhukkattai and sometimes prefer them to the regular ones. It is so simple to make, the only thing that I dont like is rolling them into tiny balls. Now this is where you can get the little ones at home to come and help you out. You get the job done and trust me this is the kind of job kids would love to help you with.
Lets talk about how to make these kozhukattais now. The main ingredient, the dough is the where you have to be careful with. But we have a simplified instant pot recipe for that too. So you are all sorted in that area 🙂
Next, is the spice powder that you coat the kozhukattais with. I usually make a simple powder with channa dal, uard dal, and red chillies. This time I decided to add some curry leaves and coriander leaves for some extra flavour and they tasted great.
You grind them to a somewhat coarse powder as shown below.
Traditional Rice dough balls cooked and coated with a spicy powder made with lentils, chillies and coriander leaves
- 1/2 cup Rice flour (even better if you can get idiyappam flour)
- 3/4 cup water
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 11/2 tsp sesame oil or some neutral oil
- 1 tsp urad dal
- 1 tsp chana dal
- 2 to 3 dried red chillies
- 3 to 4 sprigs curry leaves
- 1/4th bunch coriander leaves
- 21/2 tbsp grated coconut
- 1/4 tsp asafoetida
- 10 to 15 mint leaves (optional)
- 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- salt as needed
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Add all the ingredients for the spice powder except the coconut, coriander and asafoetida in the instant pot and roast it in saute mode until the lentil turns golden brown. Set it aside.
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Now add the coconut, coriander leaves and roast it until the coconut starts turning golden.
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Now add the roasted ingredients, asafoetida and grind it a coarse powder.
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Add water (3/4 cup) to the instant pot, oil and close the pressure cooker lid. (Clean the IP before you add the water. You dont want the kozhukattais to have a different color)
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Let it cook in manual high for 2 minutes.
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Now release pressure immediately and add the salt necessary for the dough and add the rice flour immediately whisking it continuously as you are adding it.
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It will come together pretty quickly.
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Now transfer it to a bowl and cover it with a wet cloth so that it doesnt try out.
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When the dough is somewhat warm enough to handle, apply some sesame oil in your hands and make it to a smooth dough. Cover it again with wet cloth until you use it or make small balls out of it and set it aside.
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Now place the rolled balls in a idli pan or steamer basket and steam it for 8 minutes in your IP. I add 1 cup water to the inner vessel of my IP and place my idli pan inside the inner pot to steam my kozhukkatais.
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Now heat a pan (alternatively discard the water used for steaming and switch on the saute mode.)
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Add 1/2 tsp oil, add the steamed balls, ground spice powder, salt as needed and give everything a mix.
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Serve it as a snack or offer it as a prasad! 🙂
Different flours, require different amounts of water. If your flour requires less or more, use accordingly. Usually it will not need more than twice the quantity of water.
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Oh they look so good!!!!
Thank you so much! 🙂