Kobbari Paala Thalikalu

For Day 5 of blogging marathon, here is a traditional sweet dish from Andhra called paala thalikalu. Honestly speaking, I have never eaten this before or seen anyone in our households preparing this even though we are from the region. Over the years, I however have seen it online and on cook shows. When I chose "Festive Sweet dishes" theme for the marathon, I wanted to try a traditional dish that I had never tasted before and this paala thalikalu perfectly fit the bill. Though a little consuming from my standards, it absolutely needs no supervision and that's the charm of this recipe.

Tiny rice flour strings are cooked in sweetened and cardamom flavored milk on low flame until they are done and the slow cooking results in melt in mouth kind strings in a rich milk base. A regular version of paala thalikalu doesn't include coconut and so it is optional but the addition definitely enhances the flavor factor.

Ingredients:(4 servings)
2 cups full fat milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup rice flour + extra for dusting
1/4 cup fresh, grated coconut
1/4 cup+2 Tbsp sugar
A pinch of cardamom powder

Method:
* Bring water to a rolling boil in a pan, add coconut to it and lower the heat. Then add rice flour gradually and constantly stir the mixture so that no lumps are formed. There is no need to cook the rice flour but stir well so that a uniform mixture is formed. Turn off the stove and let cool the mixture so that it becomes easy to handle.

* Pinch a small portion from the rice dough, roll into a ball and shape into small string. Use rice flour for dusting if needed. Repeat the steps until all the dough is used. Some use chakli press to speed up the process.
* Meanwhile, heat milk, sugar and cardamom together in another pan, preferably a nonstick one. Drop the shaped strings into the milk pan and cook on low flame until done. The strings do not usually break while cooking. It would take around 30 minutes on lowest heat setting for the rice strings to completely cook through.
Stirring a couple of times in the middle is needed to make sure the strings are uniformly cooking. There is no need to constantly stir the mixture.

Note:
If shaping the dough into strings seems tedious, shape the mixture into tiny balls and cook in the milk mixture. It may take a little longer to cook than the strings.

Check out the blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#

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