Jackfruit Ela Adas

 I love anything that reminds me of my hometown or my mother. I remember one of my favourite breakfast dishes growing up is Ela Ada (ela means the leaf and the ada is what you lay out as your edible stuff)

 In this case we use the humble banana leaf as the base on which the filling would be laid out. My mother never made it with a brown filling...I never knew that kind existed as a child but when I came to my in-laws' place, they always filled it with jaggery and grated coconut.

 Once the leaf is plucked, rinse it well, dry it and then before using this for packaging or in your Pothi Choru (a compact tiffin box/parcel in which your rice and its accompaniments are stored and later tied up), expose the leaf over a flame close enough by moving it back and forth or sideways. This is done to ensure that the leaf is sealed well and will not give way when we serve or pack something in it.

 With that taken care of, trim a rectangle or a square off from the main leaf. Thus our leaf is ready to be laid down on your counter surface or a chopping board. The ada that I have laid out is the same Rice dumpling dough that I have done in my earlier posts. The link will be provided herewith.
(For those of you who cannot/are not able to source the banana/plantain leaf, I feel a butter paper or an aluminium foil may help, I have not tried that version)

With a well oiled or a wet palm, pinch out a huge ball from the mother dough and lay it out by pressing the ball out as shown in the first picture. Once you have spread the dough ball well (to the thickness you prefer, the thinner the better) lay out your filling on one side of the shaped flattened roundel.

 Bring the other side of the rice ball roundel with the help of the leaf and compress them together such that there is a filling within an envelope.

 My filling was a mixture of brown sugar, freshly grated coconut and jackfruit bits all reduced over a low flame in a saucepan You can use melted jaggery as well instead of the brown sugar. The amount to be used for each is to your discretion keeping in mind the quantity of rice dough, grated coconut etc. I did pound and add a tsp. of fresh cardamom as well as this helps to lift the fruit or filling to another level.

 You can make these adas even without the fruit, the addition of the fruit was a brilliant thought as both my husband and I enjoy having Jackfruit! in limitation of course(too much is bad for the stomach and can upset the gastric movement in the tummy)

Once all your adas are ready, place them in a steamer(you can use your momo steamer or your idli vessel) and allow them to steam for around fifteen to twenty minutes. Ensure that the rice parcel is steamed and cooked though well. Extract them from the steamer and allow them to cool a bit and then have them warm.

 A perfect tea-time snack or a breakfast item or something sweet that you can make and store during festive days.

This was made for a beautiful client who came over to pick up a bread from me. As this was my friend's first time home, I wanted to receive the friend with something sweet...hence prepared these. It was thoroughly enjoyed although I had to hide a few from my husband as he just loves these traditional and naadan stuff!

 I do like mine as weird as it sounds with a bit of spicy pickle or Chamandhi podi.

I dedicate this post to my late father...his untimely passing made me start my blog and maintain this dear diary moment in cyber space, to leave behind pages from my life for my sons and for all those who think I matter or the recipe mattered. This month marks three years of my blogging and it has been the best platform to scribble down all my thoughts whether good or bad and the beauty of all things so dear to him which often revolved around food!

Ela ada or ellayappam as that's how my mom taught us and prepared for us was one of his favourites as well!

http://potsnpans-peanuts.blogspot.in/2012/05/pothichoru.html Here is the link to the Pothichoru. The following link is for the rice dough that I have used to make the Kozhakattas/steamed rice dumplings.

http://potsnpans-peanuts.blogspot.in/2012/09/kozhukkattasrice-dumplingskozhukkattais.html