Ela Ada Recipe or Easy Elayappam or Kerala Ila Ada is an authentic and traditional Kerala delicacy. A traditional sweet made during the festival season, it is dumpling made with outer rice flour layer stuffed with a jaggery and coconut filling and steamed.
Ela Ada or elayappam recipe is one of the traditional recipes from Kerala. With the natural abundance Banana plants, the entire plant is used in various methods for cooking. We do use the banana leaf for packing, serving food. And some dishes are made wrapped in it.
This Ila Ada is a native dish made with rice flour dough stuffed with a filling made with coconut and jaggery. It is wrapped and steamed in a banana leaf. Similar to this dish is the Kobbari Kudumulu or Kozhukatta. It has the same ingredients and prepared almost the same way and the only difference is the flavour that comes from the wilted banana leave used for steaming.
For my A to Z Indian Steamed Dishes, for E it is Ela Ada. I really enjoyed this sweet so much!
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Ingredients
This is a simple 3 ingredient sweet that is not very complex to make as well. The preparing technique might sound little complicated, however, once you start making it, you will realize it is very easy.
Rice Flour - Rice flour is the main ingredient used for making the outer layer. You can use store bought or make your own Homemade Rice Flour to make this dish.
Coconut - Best is to use freshly grated coconut for this. Even desiccated will work fine here. However, if you have frozen grated coconut also is fine. I always stock frozen coconut as we use it frequently for our curries and grating it when needed is tough.
Jaggery - We use jaggery as the sweetener. In this recipe, I melted the jaggery. However you can use it as a powder as well.
Other Ingredients - We use a pinch of cardamom powder for flavouring.
Instructions
Fine rice flour is used to make the outer layer for this dumpling. So it is important we roast it well and keep it ready.
Also since we are going to add water to knead the dough, it is always better to use water little by little.
For the outer dough preparation:
Heat a nonstick pan and dry roast rice flour on low flame for 5 minutes.
Transfer to the bowl and let it cool.
In a pan, bring 1.5 cups of water to a boil.
Add ghee and salt, when it starts to rolling boil, remove.
Slowly add this to the roasted flour, using a spoon mix the flour with water.
When the dough comes together almost to become a dough, you can stop adding water and knead with your hands.
We have to knead until the dough becomes smooth and soft to touch.
For the stuffing preparation:
Heat a nonstick pan with ghee, add jaggery and coconut.
Saute for 5 minutes or until jaggery melts completely.
Make sure the stuffing is sticky aromatic.
When the filling is ready, add cardamom powder and mix well and keep it aside.
Alternatively, you can simply mix the grated coconut and grated jaggery together and place it as stuffing.
How to assemble and steam:
We use banana leaves to steam these dumplings.
So cut the leaves to small squares.
Slightly warm the leaves over fire for it to become soft and it will be easy to fold without tearing.
You can alternatively use baking paper instead of leaf as well.
Grease the leaf with ghee.
Divide the dough into equal balls.
Take a ball and flatten over the banana leaf.
Place a spoon of the prepared stuffing and spread uniformly.
Fold from one side to cover it completely, and seal the sides by pressing gently.
Fill the steamer with water and bring to a boil.
Place the prepared leaves on the plates and steam for 15 minutes or until it is cooked completely.
If you are offering as prasadam, partake and enjoy.
Or you can serve this as snack too.
Substitutions
We use freshly grated coconut, if its not readily available you can use desiccated coconut or frozen coconut as well.
This is a gluten free sweet, you can try other gluten free flour to make this, though it may not taste as the rice flour based sweet.
Variations
The stuffing for this recipe is made by melting and cooking the jaggery along with coconut.
We can also make by adding powdered jaggery to the coconut and adding the powder on the spread dough. The jaggery will melt during steaming.
This will also remove the fear you may have about the jaggery getting overcooked.
Equipment
I mostly use nonstick pans for my cooking as it is easy to handle. However, while making the stuffing, you can heavy bottom pans as well.
We need a steamer and banana leaves for wrapping and steaming the Easy Elayappam.
Storage
For Easy Elayappam, both the rice flour and coconut can be frozen for later use. Or you can easily make the sweet and refrigerate as well.
Just before serving, microwave for a minute and serve. It tastes as good as before.
Expert Tips
Kneading the dough well with hot water is very important to make it smooth and soft. So use a spoon and mix the hot water well.
Once it cools down, knead with your hand to make a soft ball.
Show the leaf over fire for it to turn soft, this will make it easy for you to fold the leaf to wrap.
Grease the leaf for easy removal.
Similar steamed recipes you will love!
Recipe
Ela Ada Recipe | Easy Elayappam | Kerala Ila Ada
Ingredients
For the outer dough
- 1 cup Rice Flour
- 1.5 cups Water as required
- 1 teaspoon Ghee
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
For Stuffing
- 1 teaspoon Ghee
- 3/4 cup Jaggery
- 1 cup Coconut freshly grated or frozen
- 1/8 teaspoon Cardamom Powder
Instructions
For the stuffing preparation:
- Heat a nonstick pan with ghee, add jaggery and coconut.
- Saute for 5 minutes or until jaggery melts completely.
- Make sure the stuffing is sticky aromatic.
- When the filling is ready, add cardamom powder and mix well and keep it aside.
- Alternatively, you can simply mix the grated coconut and grated jaggery together and place it as stuffing.
For the outer dough preparation:
- Heat a nonstick pan and dry roast rice flour on low flame for 5 minutes.
- Transfer to the bowl and let it cool.
- In a pan, bring 1.5 cups of water to a boil.
- Add ghee and salt, when it starts to roll boil, remove.
- Slowly add this to the roasted flour, using a spoon mix the flour with water.
- When the dough comes together almost to become a dough, you can stop adding water and knead with your hands.
- We have to knead until the dough becomes smooth and soft to touch.
How to assemble and steam:
- We use banana leaves to steam these dumplings.
- So cut the leaves into small squares.
- Slightly warm the leaves over the fire for it to become soft and it will be easy to fold without tearing.
- You can alternatively use baking paper instead of the leaf as well.
- Grease the leaf with ghee.
- Divide the dough into equal balls.
- Take a ball and flatten over the banana leaf.
- Place a spoon of the prepared stuffing and spread uniformly.
- Fold from one side to cover it completely, and seal the sides by pressing gently.
- Fill the steamer with water and bring to a boil.
- Place the prepared leaves on the plates and steam for 15 minutes or until it is cooked completely.
- If you are offering as prasadam, partake and enjoy.
- Or you can serve this as a snack too.
Nutrition
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Radha says
This is my favorite and your recipe is amazing! We loved it!
Harini says
I have never tasted this but I can imagine the extra flavor from the banana leaves. Love it.
Rafeeda - The Big Sweet Tooth says
This is our breakfast for Eid in our side. We wait for it, the smell of them being steamed in banana leaves is enchanting. You have made it so well...