Ingredients:

• For the cover:
• 1 cup – Rice flour
• 1.25 cups – water
• A pinch of salt
• 1-2 tsp – vegetable oil or Ghee
• For the Jaggery Coconut filling (Vella poornam):
• 1 cup – fresh coconut, grated
• 3/4 cup – jaggery, powdered
• A pinch of Cardamom powder (or as per taste)

Method:

1. Add jaggery and coconut together in a skillet. On low heat, saute until the jaggery melts and the mixture thickens.
2. Add the cardamom to the mix and toss well.
3. If it does not thicken well, add a little rice flour along with a few drops of ghee and cook further for a few seconds until it thickens.
4. While still warm, take a small piece of this filling (it will be sticky, you can grease your palms with ghee) and make a small ball.
5. Repeat for the rest of the filling.
6. Now for the cover:
7. Sift store-bought rice flour two or three times. This is to remove debris, etc. Set aside.
8. The quality of rice flour will vary and hence the amount of water used will vary. You may need more or less than 1.25 cups.
9. Bring the recommended amount of water to boil along with salt and ghee.
10. When it is boiled, remove 1/4 cup of water and set aside.
11. Add the rice flour to the 1 cup of boiled water.
12. Using a wooden spoon give it a stir. It will be hot.
13. It should come together into a mass all clumped together.
14. If you find that this is too dry and not sticky, then add the additional boiled water you set aside, drop by drop, until it comes together.
15. If you find this too sticky and not pliable, you can sprinkle some more rice flour/maida (all-purpose flour).
16. Let it sit for a few minutes until its cool enough to handle.
17. It should still be hot – only just enough to enable you to handle the dough. Don’t let it get cold.
18. Set aside two small bowls – one with oil/ghee, another with warm water.
19. Grease your hands with ghee and start kneading the dough.
20. The idea is to make it pliable into a smooth consistency like that of chapatti dough.
21. The difference is that while chapatti dough has gluten and will stretch, rice flour lacks gluten and will not stretch easily.
22. The dough will be smooth but slightly sticky.
23. Grease your palms well and break off a small piece from the dough.
24. You should be able to rotate the dough into an extremely smooth ball.
25. Alternate now between dipping your fingers and greasing it with ghee and warm water for preparing the rest of the steps.
26. Using your thumb and other fingers, make a small crater in the ball you made – like an inverted cone.
27. You should be using both your hands for this.
28. You will need to make the crater sufficiently big to be able to drop in the rounds of filling you made earlier.
29. Drop the sweet filling you made into the depression.
30. Very slowly bring the ends together over the top of the filling so that you can pinch the top, sealing the filling. Pinch to make a small horn. You can always pinch off excess dough.
31. Shape the remaining to look like a beak.
32. Repeat with rest of the dough.
33. Now steam them for about 10-15 minutes.
34. You know it’s done when the colour slightly changes and the cover becomes a little translucent.
35. Once done, remove and serve warm or hot.
36. Recipe Courtesy: http://chefinyou.com/