Pooram Varuthathu / Roasted Rice Powder Snack

When a mallu hears the word “pooram”, he/she remembers “Thrissur Pooram” or any other “pooram” / festival happening in the temples of Kerala. I was seriously thinking about how this dish got such a name..This is a mixture of rice powder with some other simple ingredients which are usually available in our kitchen. It is always prepared in big amounts, and we arrange some one to help for making this.Since my childhood we had some “chechi/thatha” to prepare such dishes. She comes home in early morning, washes the big quantity of rice (not less than 10 kg), then keeps the rice in big “kutta” (means baskets made with bamboo) until the water drains out. Then she packs this rice and carries it on head to the near by rice mill.Then she comes back home and prepares other ingredients like peeling and chopping small onions, grating coconut etc.Before noon, she goes back to mill and brings the powdered rice back home. After lunch she starts mixing rice powder with other ingredients which is a big task. For this a very big aluminium vessel is used and just does them with bare hands! Some times our chechi / thatha uses our dining table for mixing! After that she starts roasting half of the amount in the big aluminium vessel. Roasting the full quantity is a difficult process, so usually the amount is divided into half. You can guess, how much these people work, they go back home after evening or at night!

Nowadays the availability of helpers are less and some of the rice mills here have started producing ‘pooram varuthathathu’ in packets with rice powder. I don’t like buying machine made pooram varuthathu, which don’t have the real fragrance and taste of our home made one.

The intention of making pooram varuthathu in bigger quantities is to keep some home for long term during festive seasons or to send some parts as gifts to relatives. After people started going abroad, especially Gulf regions, they take “pooram packets” along with usual achar, rice powder and snacks pack.. :)

Ingredients and how to prepare
Raw- rice powder (not roasted) / rice flour / pachari podi 1 kg
Coconut grated 1
Egg 1
Shallots / chuvannulli chopped 4
Balck cumin /karim jeerakam 1 tsp
Salt enough
Mix together all the above. Roast them in a pan until you get the golden red color ( refer picture)

Do you think how to have this “podi / powder” ?
Take little, add sugar, mix with tea.Black tea or verum chaya / kattan chaya is good. No problem you can take with paal chaaya (milk added tea) too. Don’t worry you can take them without tea also..

Update - Priya had mailed me for asking about Avalose unda. For making avalose unda , you have to make avalose podi first. For this , no need to add egg and black cumin. Only rice powder , coconut and enough salt are needed. (Some would add cumin and sesame seeds etc. Don't know much about it.) After roasting , seive and powder the lumps, add it to the avalose podi. Melt jaggery and mix with this. Make balls.