Ela Ada (A sweet delicacy wrapped and steamed in banana leaf)

Ela Ada is a steamed delicacy,  popular in Kerala. Ela  refers to plantain leaf and ada refers to the steamed flat rice cake filled with a mixture of grated coconut sweetened with jaggery and flavored with cardamom.

I make these ela ada for Onam  as we offer this and nendhra pazam steamed as Prasad  and  have this as our breakfast for that day. I have used here coconut and jaggery  for the filling. Back home when jackfruit is in season we stuff it with jackfruit pieces or jackfruit preserves called (chakkavaratiyadhe) they taste divine.

Method

For the outer covering

Raw Rice – 1 Cup                                                                                                                                       Idly Rice – 1 Cup                                                                                                                                           Salt – a pinch

 or Just use raw rice powder (store bought idiyappam powder)  - 2 cups

For the filling

Fresh Grated Coconut – 1 Cup                                                                                                             Powdered Jaggery – ½ Cup                                                                                                                       Ghee  or oil – 2 tsp                                                                                                                           Plantain Leaves - 6 to 8

Method

Wash and rinse both the rice for max 4 – 5 hours

Grind into a smooth paste adding water. The batter should not be very watery  nor very thick. Add a pinch of salt. Mix well and keep aside.

or Just mix the rice powder, salt  with cold water and keep aside

For the filling

Mix the grated coconut and jaggery with little cardamom  and keep aside. Don’t make this and keep earlier. You have to make all of the ingredients only when you are about to make. The reason being if you mix the coconut and jaggery and keep due to the moisture in the coconut the jaggery will melt and it will make the stuffing soggy.

Now lets  prepare the banana leaves.  

Try to select leaves without the middle vein of the leaf.  Wipe the leaves with a moist cloth.  Then place one leaf at a time on the gas flame for about a second, flipping and turning the leaf so that the leaf is slightly wilted. This step helps in making to fold the ada easily and wont tear the banana leaf whilst handling to fold them.

Preparing the adas

Take a prepared banana leaf. Grease very lightly with ghee or oil.

Pour a spoonful of the prepared rice batter and spread like a small dosa with your hands. Now place some of the filling to cover half of the dosa.

Fold the banana leaf into half, make the rest of them the same way and then steam cook the prepared adas  for 10 to 15 minutes.

It tastes so yummy when you eat it hot, the flavor of the banana leaf, the jaggery, cardamom  with rice. Feel like having it now J

Enjoy making this.

Latha

Sending this to:

http://www.ezcookbook.net/2012/09/lets-party-prasadam-prashad-special.html

http://bestofmykitchen.blogspot.in/2012/03/lets-party-every-month.html

http://nivedhanams.blogspot.in/2012/08/taste-of-tropicscoconut.html

http://gourmetglobal.blogspot.com/

Onam Sadhya the grand fest : http://vigsha.blogspot.com/2012/08/onam-sadhya-grand-feast-event.html

http://gayathriscookspot.blogspot.in/2012/09/walk-through-memory-lane-august-winner.html

http://smithasspicyflavors.blogspot.in/2012/09/event-walk-through-memory-lane-wtml.html