R001Palappam
The lace-edged fermented appam, the Syrian Christian breakfast bread
Photograph: Adobe Stock · representative of the dish
The re-engineeringNothing removed from the puttu itself except the coconut, trimmed from a heaped layer to 20 g a portion so it still brings its fibre without carrying 11 g of saturated fat. The real change is the bounded portion — 60 g of flour a person — and the fact that this recipe refuses to be served without R010 beside it.
This is the flagship breakfast of this book, and the reason is a number measured in Kerala on Kerala food. In Pavithran and colleagues' 24-week randomised trial (2020), the recipes participants actually ate were tested for glycaemic index, and red rice puttu came out at GI 38, alongside Rose Matta rice at 38, against whole-wheat roti at 45 and oats puttu at 51–52. The low-glycaemic arm's HbA1c fell 0.93%. Treat 38 as a measured value for this preparation cooked this way, not as a property of every bag on every stove. Then steam it and eat it with chickpeas.
Before you start: Water and flour is the whole skill of this dish. Add the water in stages and stop when the crumb holds a shape in your fist and breaks apart cleanly when you push it with a thumb. Too wet and it steams into a solid plug; too dry and it falls out as powder.
Puttu, Matta Rice
Active 15 minutes Total 30 minutes
Scale
4 servings
Ingredients — tap to tick off
- ✓240 g (2 cups) matta rice flour or puttu podi, lightly roasted
- ✓4 g (¾ tsp) M07 salt or plain salt
- ✓170–190 ml water, at room temperature
- ✓80 g (¾ cup) freshly grated coconut
Allergens: None of the major allergens.
Equipment: Puttu kutti — the cylindrical steamer, bamboo or steel. Substitute: a stacked steamer basket lined with muslin, filled 4 cm deep; you lose the cylinder shape and nothing else. A large idli steamer works the same way.
Per serving (estimated)
| Energy | 272 kcal |
| Protein | 6 g |
| Fibre | 4 g |
| Net carbohydrate | 44 g |
| Total carbohydrate | 48 g |
| Sugars | 1 g |
| Fat | 9 g |
| Saturated fat | 7 g |
| Sodium | 280 mg |
From ICMR-NIN IFCT 2017 and USDA FoodData Central. Per-serving figures stay the same when you scale.
Method — tap a step to mark it done, tap a time to start a timer
- Dissolve the salt in 150 ml of the water so it distributes evenly. Salt sprinkled dry over flour lands in patches you will taste.
- Sprinkle the salted water over the flour a little at a time, raking it through with your fingertips rather than stirring. Stop when the flour has darkened evenly and no dry pockets remain, adding the last 20–40 ml only if needed.
- Test the crumb by closing your fist around a handful. It should hold the shape of your palm and then crumble cleanly when pushed with a thumb, of raking. If it stays as a wet lump, add 2 tablespoons more dry flour.
- Rest the mix , then break up any lumps by rubbing it between your palms or pulsing it twice in a dry blender. This is what makes puttu light.
- Layer the puttu kutti: a tablespoon of coconut, then flour to a third of the way, coconut again, flour, coconut, finishing with coconut at the top. Do not press or pack it down at any point — the steam has to travel through.
- Steam over a pot of hard-boiling water until a thin steady plume comes through the top of the cylinder and the whole thing smells cooked and sweetish, from the first sign of steam. Over-steaming makes it claggy.
- Push the cylinder out onto a plate with the handle of a wooden spoon, in one piece if you can. Serve it within , while the crumb is still open.
Why this worksPuttu is steamed at a moisture content low enough that the starch gelatinises only partially and the grains never merge into a paste. That leaves a crumb of discrete particles rather than a continuous gel, which slows enzyme access — the plausible reason a red rice puttu measured GI 38 while the same rice boiled soft measures higher. The coconut adds fat and about 2 g of fibre per portion.
Sourcing note
Look for "red puttu podi", "matta puttu podi" or "roasted red rice flour" in any Kerala or Sri Lankan grocery, and check the colour through the bag — it should be dull pinkish-fawn, not white. Anything labelled matta that is bright white has been polished, and polish is the lever that matters: glycaemic index in one Indian parboiled variety rose from 57.6 unpolished to 79.6 at 9.7% polish. If only plain white puttu podi is available, use it and take the pulse pairing more seriously, not less. To roast your own flour, dry-toast plain matta rice flour over a low flame 4–6 minutes until it smells faintly of biscuit and no longer of raw starch.
If you are watching…
Blood sugar: at the measured GI of 38 and 44 g of net carbohydrate, this portion is a glycaemic load of about 16 — moderate by the standard tables, and roughly half what the same weight of polished white rice would deliver. This is the lowest-glycaemic-load rice breakfast in the chapter; it is not a low-carbohydrate one. Two portions is not the same as one.
Blood pressure: 280 mg of sodium against a 2,000 mg daily target, and made with plain salt it is about 400 mg. The chutney beside it will usually carry more, so look there next.
Cholesterol: 7 g of saturated fat, all from the coconut. Halving the coconut halves it, at a cost in fibre and in the dish.
Swap it
Plain white puttu podi for matta → the texture is softer and paler and the glycaemic advantage of the measured GI 38 does not transfer. Make the pulse non-negotiable.
40 g coconut instead of 80 g → saturated fat falls to about 3.7 g a serving and the puttu is drier and noticeably less good. A fair trade if LDL cholesterol is your working number.
Add 30 g grated jackfruit or 40 g mashed ripe nendran to the layers → the traditional sweet versions. Both add sugar; the nendran adds about 10 g of available carbohydrate a serving.
Scale it
At eight servings, steam in two loads rather than packing the cylinder tighter.
Make ahead · store · freeze
The moistened crumb keeps 24 hours refrigerated in a covered box and steams straight from cold. Steamed puttu holds 2 days in the fridge. Freeze the steamed puttu 1 month in portioned bags. Reheat by re-steaming 4–5 minutes from chilled or 6–8 minutes from frozen; a microwave turns it rubbery.
Leftovers
Crumble cold puttu into a pan with a teaspoon of oil, mustard seed, curry leaf, sliced shallot and any leftover pulse, and fry it for 4–5 minutes for puttu upma. Or mash it with ripe banana and a pinch of cardamom as a child's breakfast.
Troubleshooting
Solid, heavy plug instead of a crumb: too much water, or the mix was packed into the cylinder. Both faults are invisible until it comes out.
Falls apart as dry powder: too little water. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons over the crumb, rake, and re-steam.
Steam never comes through the top: the cylinder is packed too tight, or the pot below is not at a hard boil.
Tastes of raw flour: the podi was unroasted. Dry-toast it next time.
Serve with
R010 Kadala Curry — the intended partner and the point of the recipe · R011 Cherupayar Curry · R107 Sambharam
Tap a star to rate this recipe
