Chakka Puyukku with Elai Adai: Grandma's and her grandma's love wrapped in Banana Leaves Chakka Puyukku with Elai Adai ( My grandma’s grandmother’s dish of Spiced steamed jackfruit with rice packets filled with sweet jackfruit, jaggery and coconut wrapped in banana leaves)

Passport & Plate - Chakka Puyukku with Elai Adai

India | Friday, March 6, 2015 | 5 photos

Ingredients
Ingredients:
1. Lots of love
2. Ripe jackfruit and it’s seeds - 1 Kg (Ripe yet not sweet or completely matured – one that’s been removed 2 months prior to its sweetened maturity stage )
3. Chakkavaratti : Jackfruit pulp jam – ½ Kg (A thick jam prepared at home by slow cooking sweet jackfruit pulp in jaggery, clarified butter and very little water by continuously stirring it for about 3 hours, till the water evaporates completely. This jam preserve can last a year.)
4. Rice flour – 2 cups
5. Fresh shredded coconut (2 whole coconuts)
6. Jaggery – 1 cup
7. Red chillies – 2 pieces
8. Green chillies – 2 pieces
9. Curry leaves - 2 sprigs
10. Cardamom pods – 5 pieces
11. Turmeric powder – 1 tablespoon
12. Salt to taste
13. Coconut oil
14. Clarified butter
15. Banana leaves

My grandma’s tip on how to identify the right ripe matured and unsweetened jackfruit:
This jackfruit is a matured ripe jackfruit, removed about 2 months prior to its sweetened stage. When you pinch the seed of the jackfruit, the seed will slip out effortlessly from its thick skin. It looks like a matured sweet fruit, just that it is not yellow in colour, it’s white and is an indication that it’s matured but not sweet yet.

 

How to prepare this recipe
This recipe is prepared in two parts. Let’s begin with the first part – the Chakka Puyukku.
For Chakka Puyukku (The spiced streamed jackfruit curry)
Cut the matured unsweetened jackfruit in halves. The edible part of the jackfruit includes the white fruitlets with seeds inside, which are protected by sepals. Remove the sepals and take off the thick skin around the seeds. Now slice the outer thick skin around it as well as the seeds in small pieces.
Add one tablespoon turmeric powder and two tablespoon salt to the chopped jackfruit and mix well.
Add one and half cups of water and pressure cook the mix up to 4-5 whistles. This will take about 30-40 minutes.
Now grind the red and green chillies, one whole shredded coconut into a coarse paste. Add this paste to the cooked jackfruit and mix well.
Finish it by tempering a sprig of curry leaves with 4-5 tablespoons of coconut oil, mix it well and it’s ready.
Now let’s move to the second part – The Elai Adai.

For Elai Adai: (Rice pockets filled with sweet jackfruit jam, coconut and jaggery, streamed in banana leaves)
Start by mixing the rice flour with water to get a pancake batter consistency that can be spread. (My grandma always soaked raw rice for 4- hours before grinding it into a paste in her traditional stone grinder. To check if the batter is perfect, it should heavily drip neatly and be of a spreading consistency) Add two teaspoons of coconut oil and 2 teaspoons of clarified butter to this batter and mix well.
For the filling, melt one cup of jaggery with one cup of water in a heated pan. Strain this melted jaggery mixture and put it back in the pan. Add shredded coconut and Jackfruit pulp jam to it. Keep stirring the mixture and let it loosen. After about 15 minutes, the mixture will thicken into a jam like consistency.
Now cut the banana leaves in parts, leaving out the dividing center. Grease the banana leaves with coconut oil. Now spread a ladle full of rice batter on the leaf in circular motion. Make sure it is spread thinly. Now spread about two spoons of the prepared jam filling on the middle of this rice batter layer. Pat it and fold the leaf into half, then fold the edges to seal the pack. Repeat for all the leaves, depending on how many packets you wish to prepare.
Steam these banana leaf packets for about 30 minutes. Once done, check if it has steamed well. (Grandma’s tip: When you open the leaf, the packets shouldn’t stick to the leaf and come out clean. Also the rice layer will be thin and transparent enough to see the dark filling inside. If it does, it’s perfectly cooked. Grandmas are so damn right about these!)
Now these packets (Elai Adai) with spiced steamed jackfruit curry are ready to be savoured. This combination and preparation is unique to our family and my grandmother’s family.
Serve with lots of love, till every inch of your soul feels content.

 

The story behind this recipe
It’s love wrapped in banana leaves. Takes me back to summer vacations at my grandma’s traditional ‘Tharavadu’ wood and stone house. Where anyone who entered wouldn’t leave unfed. Where abundance was a state of mind; wealth was everything that grew in the backyard and money existed as something new yet wasn’t a necessity. A time when bartering coconuts, jackfruits and for rice was a way of life. And her love was cooked in earthen and stone pots over the warm traditional wood-fired clay stove. She always knew how to keep the children as well as others at home happy with all that is available in the backyard. This recipe travelled all the way to my soul, from my grandma Meenakshi Ammal and her grandma. Jackfruit trees, Coconut groves, Banana palms were in abundance in most parts of Kerala. My grandma belonged to a tiny hamlet called ‘Poonyar’ in the Kottayam district of Kerala, India. The preparation work for the dish is time-consuming and quite a lot of hard work, but the ingredients and process are equally simple. . She always fed the workers who returned home after a hard day at our groves and fields. Their hearts preferred this satiating meal by her on banana leaves. For all the jackfruits and coconuts they got home were now cooked so lovingly. Back then, food was invented out of availability and necessity. This dish was also a part of our familial tradition of celebrating Onam. Flower patterns adorned the house entrance and these packets were placed over them as an offering to Sun. On occasions, our familial temple stocked these in earthen pots as an offering to God. The children of the village would gather at the temple on occasions to savour this humble piece of heaven. Its beauty lies in is its simplicity. It is sure to transport you to Kerala, in its rawest essence. As you bite into this sweet and spicy goodness, one is sure to be touched by my Grandma’s heart-warming love. I am truly grateful to receive this as a blessing from her.