Pelakai Gatti is a jackfruit flavoured cake with a dash of cardomom, steamed in teak leaves to add to the richness of flavors. Pelakai Gatti one of the common snacks in Tulunadu region in jackfruit season when it is found in abundance.
Ingredients to prepare Pelakai Gatti
Ripe Jackfruit pods (deseeded) – two and half cups
Jaggery – half cup
Cardamom powder – quarter tsp
Fresh and shredded coconut – 2 cups
Raw rice – 2 cups
Salt – as per taste
Teak leaves – 20 (if not available then use plantain leaves)
Process of Pelakai Gatti preparation
Wash 2 cups of raw rice and soak in water for 4 hours.
Clean around 20 teak leaves and wipe it dry.
Clean the jackfruit pods and remove the seeds. Chop the pods roughly to ease the grinding process.
Take a grinding jar and add 2 and half cups of roughly chopped seedless jackfruit pods. Also add half cup of jaggery and quarter tsp of cardamom powder. Grind only these ingredients without adding any water. Adding water should be strictly avoided while making jackfruit gatti batter.
Now to the prepared jackfruit pod paste add 2 cups of fresh and shredded coconut and the soaked rice. Again since we cannot add water we should be adding rice in batches so that it becomes easy to grind the batter.
Add salt as per taste. Optionally we can add quarter tsp of turmeric powder to enhance the color of the gatti.
As mentioned ‘DO NOT ADD WATER’ and grind all the ingredients together into a very fine batter.
Once the batter is ready, take teak leaves and spread 1 or 2 ladle full of batter on the leaf. It is better to add less amount of batter onto the leaf spread it thin than making it very thick. Spread the batter evenly and thin on the leaf in a rectangular shape.
Now fold the leaves from all 4 sides shaping it like an envelope and completely covering the batter from all sides.
Boil water in an Idli steamer and place all the teak envelopes filled with batter inside the idli steamer.
Jackfruit pods take time to cook. We need to cook the gattis on high flame for atleast 30 minutes.
Unfold the leaves. You would see the Pelakai Gatti changing its color to beautiful orange-red which is because of the teak leaves around the batter. Teak leaves leave their color, flavor and medicinal values to the Pelakai Gatti.
For Jackfruit lovers, here is another dish from the Mangalore region – Pelakai Garige.
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