Raks Kitchen

Home » SWEETS » Thiruvathirai kali recipe and adai

Thiruvathirai kali recipe and adai

by 55 Comments / Jump to Recipe

thiruvathirai-kali-recipe


Thiruvathirai kali recipe for the festival to offer as prasadam. Thiruvathirai adai – two in one post with step by step pictures, quick videos.

We usually celebrate thiruvathirai. A Hindu festival mainly celebrated among the Tamil nadu shaivites.  We at our home, make adai, thiruvathirai kali and 7 kari kootu (kootu made with 7 kind of veggies).

What is Thiruvathirai? How to celebrate thiruvathirai? Learn this detailed post by my sister in law to know about the festival and how we celebrate at our home. I wish to make this festival a mandatory one at home to make sure my kid knows about it. So every year I will definitely celebrate this one.

thiruvathirai-kali

I call my MIL or my mom to check how to make these and this year too I called my MIL on eve of thiruvathirai (yesterday) and got the measurements. I am now having the recipe here to keep the records of my perfect adai and kali.  They turned out so tasty this time!

Thiruvathirai Kali recipe breifing

Thiruvathirai kali – First, Roast rice and moong dal until it turns golden in colour. Later, it is powdered, cooked in jaggery syrup to get a sweet Kali.

We make fluffy kali, so the rice will be broken instead of powdering it too fine like a flour. we even used to have a grain grinder in stone (enthiram) just like how we have ammi, ural- ulakkai or kodagal. So they break rice carefully in the enthiram. Unlike mixie, enthiram gives evenly broken grains, perfect for the kali.

These grains take longer time to get cooked than the fine powder. So I cook the rice and dal first, later add jaggery syrup and cook furthermore to get Kali ready.

RELATED POSTS

thiruvathirai-kali-recipe
Print Pin
3.67 from 3 votes

Thiruvathirai Kali recipe

Thiruvathirai kali and thiruvathirai adai recipe two in one post with step by step pictures, quick videos.
Course Sweets
Cuisine Indian
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Servings 3
Cup measurements

Ingredients

  • ½ cup Raw rice
  • 2 tbsp paasi paruppu/ moong dal
  • ½ cup Jaggery
  • ¼ cup Coconut
  • 1 pinch Cardamom
  • 1 tsp Ghee
  • 1 cup water
  • salt – A pinch

Instructions

  • Heat a pan and dry roast rice till it turns  slightly golden colour and roast the paasi paruppu separately till golden brown.
  • After cooling down,grind it, just use the Juice/inch/pulse option in ur mixer to just make the rice & dal broken like rava.
  • Pressure cook this  in low flame directly in a pressure cooker (add a pinch of salt)with rice : water , 1:2 ratio,for 2 to 3 whistles. Note: My mother in law adds jaggery and gives 5-6 whistles. But the rice and jaggery will seem like under cooked. Again we have to cook to make it absorb the jaggery. I prefer cooking rice powder first and adding the jaggery as I want to make sure the rice is cooked well. The roasted rice and dal gives that Kali flavour perfectly, no need to worry about the procedure.
  • After the pressure goes off, add the powdered jaggery, coconut, cardamom  and ghee and keep the cooker in flame and continue on mixing in low flame till the jaggery mixes well with the cooked rice mixture. Once the cooker is opened, you can fluff it and keep it aside for the rice to cool down and then add jaggery and make kali.
  • After some 4-5 minutes a fluffy kali consistency reaches and transfer the kali now to the serving dish. If you want you can fry  some 4-5 broken cashews in ghee and add it to the kali.

Video

Notes

  • I powder the rice to little bigger particles, so cook it first and then add jaggery. Adding jaggery along rice will make rice cooking difficult. So I feel the rice in kali not cooked properly. That’s why I adapt cooking rice rice and then adding jaggery. If you feel it’s not traditional, you can choose to cook rice powder in jaggery syrup.
  • Instead of adding jaggery, you can make syrup, filter it and add to kali. 
  • Few of you doubt if this is same tasting as pongal but no, it is not. Since we roast the rice until flavourful, it is totally different in flavor as well as texture. 

Thiruvathirai kali Step by step method:

  1. Heat a pan and dry roast rice till it turns  slightly golden colour and roast the paasi paruppu separately till golden brown.step 1 roast rice, dal
  2. After cooling down,grind it, just use the Juice/inch/pulse option in ur mixer to just make the rice & dal broken like rava.step-2-powder coarsely
  3. Pressure cook this  in low flame directly in a pressure cooker (add a pinch of salt)with rice : water , 1:2 ratio,for 2 to 3 whistles. Note: My mother in law adds jaggery and gives 5-6 whistles. But the rice and jaggery will seem like under cooked. Again we have to cook to make it absorb the jaggery. I prefer cooking rice powder first and adding the jaggery as I want to make sure the rice is cooked well. The roasted rice and dal gives that Kali flavour perfectly, no need to worry about the procedure.
    step-3-pressure cook
  4. After the pressure goes off, add the powdered jaggery, coconut, cardamom  and ghee and keep the cooker in flame and continue on mixing in low flame till the jaggery mixes well with the cooked rice mixture. Once the cooker is opened, you can fluff it and keep it aside for the rice to cool down and then add jaggery and make kali.step-4-add jaggery, coconut
  5. After some 4-5 minutes a fluffy kali consistency reaches and transfer the kali now to the serving dish. If you want you can fry  some 4-5 broken cashews in ghee and add it to the kali.
thiruvathirai-kali

Sweet rice flour adai for thiruvathirai :

sweet rice adai


For thiruvathirai, most of the people make only Kali and kootu. Adai is our family special. Its a must for us to make this and we should also make this carefully without breaking the adai for the well being and goodness of the family.

Ingredients
  • Rice flour – 1 cup
  • Jaggery – 3/4 cup
  • Coconut ,grated – 1/4 cup
  • cardamom, powdered – 1
  • Salt – a pinch
  • water – 1 cup (May vary if using store bought  rice flour or home made rice flour)
thiruvathirai-adai-dough

Sweet rice adai method:

  1. Usually my mom, MIL uses freshly ground rice flour, but I used the ready made idiyappam flour, which always gives a handy help to me. If you are using rice flour that usually available in market or fresh homemade rice flour, dry roast just a little to heat up the flour. Boil water with jaggery. sweet adai-step1
  2. Stir till jaggery dissolves and remove (strain)any impurities.sweet-adai-step2
  3. Add the rice flour,coconut gratings, cardamom, salt and stir well.sweet adai-step3sweet-adai-step3a
  4. Initially it will look like forming lumps, but if  you continuously stir it you will get a smooth non sticky dough. The key is the dough should be already 3/4 th cooked. Then only we will get soft and non breakable adais. Also the dough should not be too stiff and tight, it should be soft, then only you will be able to flatten the dough without the sides breaking. In case it is stiff, keep some boiling water ready and add to the dough to soften it.sweet adai-step4
  5. Make 7 equal sized balls out of it and flatten in a greased butter paper, (or in plantain leaf)one by one.sweet-adai-step5
  6. I used my butter paper for this. Once the adai is flattened, transfer to the tawa by inverting the paper/ banana leaf over hot tawa. Toast both sides with ghee little drizzled in the tawa in medium flame.sweet-adai-step6
  7. Cook slow, do not flip often. press gently for even browning. Take care not to break the adai as these are meant not to be broken.rice-sweet-adai-step7

Top with butter and enjoy!! Tastes heaven 😊.

Notes:

  • Don’t roast the rice flour too much as it will make the adai break. My mom and mami roasts until flavourful though. 
  • Turn just once,if you keep on turning then too the adai will break.
  • As you cook the adai, stack it in the plate you are going to offer to god, to avoid breaking during transferring. 
How to make thiruvathirai adai

Reader Interactions

Comments

  9. jayasri

    lovely pics, just makes you pick them up, you are rocking girl with awesome step by step photos and instructions, keep it up, Wishing you and your family a very happy new year dear

    Reply

  23. Siri

    Dear Raks,

    Wishing you and your family a very Happy and Joyous 2010. May all your dreams come true. Both adai and kali look delicious..:)

    Cheers,
    Siri

    Reply

  34. Cilantro

    Wish you a very happy New Year! We make Adai for Thiruvadirai too, I make them a little thick and always use the fresh ground rice flour.I could not take pics to post them, got too busy with the poojai & New Year`s Eve party.

    Reply

  37. Anonymous

    Now only from the look of them…my mouth is watering…so only could imagine how tasty that will be….lovely dishes & the photos…Wish you have the very best of the New Year ahead…

    Reply

  42. egglesscooking

    I came here from EC's Super Blogger Sunday. The pictures and recipes are excellent Raks. I don't know how I missed your blog all these days. Will be lurking regularly.

    We prepare kali but the adai is new to me. When do we add the coconut etc to the adai? While mixing the rice flour to the jaggery syrup itself?

    Reply

  43. RAKS KITCHEN

    Madhuram,

    Thank you for your kind words and your compliments!! Its a honor to hear from you 🙂

    I forgot the ingredients in the procedure,now updated the post,thanks for bringing to my eyes,we add that before adding rice flour.

    Reply

  46. RENU

    hi rajeshwari
    happy new yr….hope ur new yr is good..thanks a lot ofr the recipe..i will be making for the first time…….was nervous….its nice to learn ths way.
    thanks
    jayanthi

    Reply

  53. dewdrops

    Hi
    I made your adai recipe but when I mixed the dough the consistency was not like in your photo. I added more rice flour almost half cup extra to get near to the one shown here. I used store bought one. Where to correct? Please suggest how to get your photo consistency of dough. In Kali recipe you have not mentioned when to add coconut please guide in that also. Thanks in advance.

    Reply

  54. Raks anand

    If your dough is watery after you add the flour, keep mixing in low flame or medium flame until it becomes solid. I used idiyappam flour so its super fine flour, it gets cooked as soon as I add. If its ordinary rice flour, it takes time to get cooked and absorb the water. Thats y, it will take time to get solid dough.

    Reply

  55. dewdrops

    Hi, In the Kali recipe you have mentioned coconut as ingredient but which step it should be added. Please review the recipe to guide me. In the adai recipe the rice flour jaggery water ratio u mentioned I got a very inconsistent dough. I added extra rice flour to get adai consistency. Please correct me how to rectify the error. I used store bought flour. Thanks

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating