Red rice steamcake

This is chuvanna chiratta puttu for Malayalees. Made from coarsely ground red rice flour, the puttu is steamed in a coconut shell shaped puttu maker. There is a perforated lid at the bottom of the chiratta puttu through which steam from boiling water enters the puttu maker and cooks the puttu. Traditionally, the puttu maker is a long bamboo in which layers of rice flour and grated coconut is stuffed. It is kept on top of a vessel with boiling water and its top closely fits the puttu maker. Nowadays, a steel puttu maker is fitted on top of a pressure cooker.

 

 

 

Ingredients of my favorite puttu..

Chuvanna puttu podi - 1/2 cup

Salt - a pinch

Water - a splash

Coconut, grated - 3 Tbsp

 

 

 

 

 

 

The method to make the earthy flavored puttu..

 

 

In a bowl, mix puttu podi and salt. Add water little by little and merge gently with your fingers. Combine softly to remove any lumps. Set aside for a few minutes.

 

 

 

 

In the chiratta puttu, make sure that the perforated lid is at the bottom. Add alternate layers of coconut and the integrated puttu podi so that the top and bottom layer of the chiratta puttu is coconut. Close with lid and keep on top of a pressure cooker which has water. Cook on slow flame. As the water boils, the steam enters the chiratta puttu through the perforated lid, cooks the puttu and escapes through the holes in the top lid. After you see steam coming out from the top, you can turn off the heat after a few more minutes. Enjoy with scrambled eggs.

 

Fiona Valpy's "The Dressmaker's Gift" takes you to present day Paris and there is also a flashback to Nazi-occupied Paris times. Harriet is fascinated by a photograph of her grandmother, Claire taken in front of a couture dressmaking shop in Paris. She recently lost her mother when she took her own life. Harriet leaves home and finds a job in the same couture shop. She knows nothing about her mother's family, but she now pieces bits together when she meets Claire's friend's granddaughter. She learns that Claire and her friends were part of the secret Resistance fighting the Nazi's when they occupied Paris. Claire gets caught and is moved to the concentration camps in Flossenburg and Dachau. The book describes the inhumane ways in which the occupants were treated. Harriet realises that her mother must have inherited a part of the aftereffects of the trauma from Claire. She then understands better why her mother was driven into depression. 

 

 

It is traumatic and saddening to read how humans could treat their fellow humans the way they did during the holocaust.