Halasina Gatti/Ponsa muddo (jackfruit dumplings steamed in tender leaves of teakwood)

This jackfruit dish is very popular in mangalore and tastes heavenly specially with home made butter or ghee. its traditionally made using teakwood leaves or banana leaves as a wrapper,which helps the cook the dish evenly with the steam and double the flavour and aroma and also gives nice rice pinkish red colour to the dish when steamed in tender teak-wood leaves .This whole thing gives a very authentic feeling to the dish.

Both tender and ripe fruits and the seeds are rich in minerals and vitamins. Ripe fruits are rich in vitamin A, which maintain good vision. Vitamin B complex helps convert food into energy. Iron, is present in blood, which is involved in the movement of oxygen through the body. Try this and do

Ingredients

• 3cups Dosa rice/Raw rice
• 1 cup jackfruit bulbs,de-seeded
• 1 cup Jaggery ( you can adjust depending on the sweetness of jackfruit)
• 1/2 cup Coconut,grated
• 1tsp Salt

Cooking Directions

1. Soak rice in water for 2-3 hours.
2. Wash the rice & drain the water. Grind the jackfruit & rice along with coconut ,not so smooth texture. Which means medium texture. Not very smooth, not so coarse.
3. Then add jaggery & grind further for 2-3 minutes.You can use 2-3 tbsp of water if the batter is too thick,while grinding.
4. Meanwhile wash & dry the Teakwood/ sagwan leaves.
5. Dry roast all the leaves one by one over the gas top to get rid of its stiffness by just swiping the leaf over the fire or you can microwave leaves for 1 -2 minutes.
6. Now add salt to the batter and mix it well.
7. Arrange the leaves and pour 1 ladle full batter on the leaves and slowly spread it using back of the spoon or with your hand .
8. Once the batter is spread evenly, seal the spread by covering it from all four sides,to form a packet like shape.
9. Keep a steamer ready to cook these dumplings.You can use double boiler or idli steamer.
10. once you are done with the packets. arrange these sealed packets in a steamer.
11. Steam cook for an 45-50 minutes on high flame. Just keep a check to see if it is cooked. To check just pierce a pack with the help of a fork. When it is cooked you would see the sealed pack has turned pink. The color of the leaf turns dark pink color.
12. Once done let it cool & then relish it with fresh home made butter or ghee/clarified butter.

Tip:

• 1 Do not have to worry if sagwan leaves are not available. The batter can be spread on banana leaves instead or you can steam this in greased ramekins.
• 2 you can replace rice with idli rava

2nd Method

• grind together jackfruit ,coconut and jaggery to fine paste
• Then heat a heavy bottomed pan or kadai and pour the jackfruit mixture and washed idli rava.
• Boil this for 5-10 minutes till the mixture is semi solid
• Then steam as i mentioned in the 1st method.