Ottada

This is one of my favourite dish and I still remember my mom making them when I return from school.. Usually, this dish is prepared in banana leaf, but as we were staying in a city, it was difficult to get banana leaf and my mom found out an alternative .... she used to make them using a plastic sheet. Of course, the extra flavor of banana leaf was missing, but still we liked it a lot.

I had only one piece of the banana leaf (left out from our Onam sadhya ) and thought to try out this dish...As no more banana leaf was left, tried my mother's method too...It came out perfect and tasted amazing.

Ingredients

To make the filling:

1 cup Coconut (freshly grated)
4 tbsp Sugar
1 tsp Cardamom powder
1 tsp Ghee

Method for the filling: Take a bowl and mix coconut, sugar, cardamom powder and ghee. The filling is ready. Keep this aside.


To make the dough:

250 gm Rice flour
Salt to taste
250 ml Water


Method

• Boil water by adding salt. When it starts to boil, add rice flour and mix well.
• Take off from heat and mix well. When it is still warm, knead well using your hands to a soft and smooth dough.
• Take a medium sized dough ball and place it on a banana leaf. Press gently using your palms and fingers into a slightly thin disk. Dip your fingers in little water, so that the dough won't stick to your fingers when you are pressing it.
• Take a spoonful of  the filling (recipe mentioned above) or coconut-jaggery filling and spread it on the disk.
• Fold it gently along with the banana leaf, so as to form a crescent moon shape. Press nicely on all the sides.
• Heat a tawa and place the ottada (along with the banana leaf) on it. Flip over to cook the other side.
• When both the sides are nicely cooked, take off from heat and serve it hot.
• Remove the banana leaf and enjoy!!!

Note:

1. If you don't get a banana leaf, don't worry...still you can make this dish. Take a clean plastic sheet and spread little oil on it. Take a medium sized dough ball. Press it gently using your palms and fingers into a slightly thin disk. Dip your fingers in little water, so that the dough won't stick to your fingers when you are pressing it. Spread the filling on it and fold (along with the plastic sheet) it to form a crescent moon shape. Remove the plastic sheet from one side and flip it on a hot tawa by removing the whole plastic sheet.
2. I used the coconut-jaggery filling while making this dish. You can fill it with the coconut-sugar filling(recipe given above)...It's your choice...

Thanks for visiting

Happy Cooking!!