Spicy ragi puttu

Puttu is a popular South Indian steam cooked dish which can be prepared for breakfast or as an evening snack. I already posted sweet rice flour puttu and now I am posting spicy version of ragi puttu. My mom prepares both sweet and spicy puttu very often as an evening snack when we come from school. Here comes the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups – Ragi flour
• 1 no – Onion (chopped finely)
• 2 or 3 nos – Green chillies (chopped)
• 2 to 3 tbsp – Coconut grated
• Salt as needed
• Water as needed

Seasonings:

• 2 tsp – Oil
• 1/4 tsp – Mustard seeds
• 1/4 tsp – Split black gram
• 1/4 tsp – Cumin seeds
• 4 or 5 nos – Curry leaves
• 1 pinch – Asafoetida

Preparation method:

1. Take a mixing bowl, add ragi flour and required salt to it, mix well. Sprinkle one tbsp of water at a time to the flour and mix gently.
2. The flour should look slightly crumbly texture as shown above.Transfer this to an idly cooker / puttu maker and steam it for 10 mins or until well cooked. Allow them to cool.
3. Heat oil in a pan, season with items given for seasoning. Add chopped onion, green chillies and little bit salt (we already added salt in puttu), saute until translucent.
4. Now add cooked ragi puttu and mix everything well together. Cook for 5 mins and then switch off the stove. Garnish with grated coconut and serve hot.

Notes:

• You can use either idly cooker (with or without cloth) or puttu maker.
• You can increase or decrease number of green chillies as per your spice level.
• I used homemade ragi flour which took 15 mins for me to cook ragi puttu where as store bought ragi flour took 10 mins to cook.