The humble puttu is a steamed dish traditionally made with rice and coconut. Here, Shinu Ramachandran attempts to go against the OG recipe and makes a version with jowar.

As I spoke to my Amma during our daily phone conversation — which always starts with food — I hesitantly told her I had finally tried making jowar puttu and liked it even more than the traditional rice puttu. I felt guilty saying it, as if I were betraying my ancestors by preferring the new version. Amma simply reminded me that in the culinary world, it’s called evolving and adapting.

Like many Malayali families who have migrated to other states, we still cling to our traditional foods. Puttu was a Sunday breakfast staple growing up. As a kid, I enjoyed eating it with milk and sugar, then as I grew older, I ate it with mashed ripe bananas and as an adult, with kadala curry (chickpea curry), which is the traditional combination.

The first time I made rice puttu was when Amma brought a chiratta puttu maker for me from Kerala. Unlike the traditional tall cylindrical one, this was a smaller version that resembled the shape of chiratta (coconut shell). In my first attempt, the puttu lay all crumbled and disappointed on the plate. It tasted dry and uncooked. I tried again, and added a little more water to the flour mixture, but this time it turned out sticky and lumpy.

Amma then shared a trick with me to measure the correct moisture consistency — if you squeeze tight a fistful of mixture, it should hold but, it should also crumble when you break it up. it. In my next attempt, I followed the trick, and it held together confidently like a steamed rice cake. And, it tasted right, just the way it tasted in my childhood.

The beauty of puttu lies in its simplicity. It is made with two ingredients abundant in the fertile land of Kerala — rice and coconuts — which show the ingenuity of our ancestors. Its origins, however, remain debated.

According to Tanya Abraham, in her book Eating with History, the Portuguese are believed to have introduced the puttu, which was an easy staple for their travels on a ship. Another theory claims that puttu has been a part of South India, with mentions in ancient Tamil literature. Whatever may be the origin, it is the favourite breakfast dish of most Malayali households. Variations of this steamed delicacy are found around the world too — like pittu in Sri Lanka served with coconut milk and spicy curries, kue putu in Indonesia made with glutinous rice flour, stuffed with palm sugar and served as a popular street food, and puto bumbong in the Philippines made with purple rice and traditionally served during Christmas season. 

After having mastered the rice puttu, Amma encouraged me to try making it with millets. I first tried making the ragi puttu. Ragi is quite bland, so when I tried it with kadala curry, it didn’t make the cut.

I then tried jowar puttu. When I flipped it onto the plate, it looked perfectly rich, with its pale wheatish colour against the layer of white coconut. I crumbled a part of it and ate it and the rustic aroma of the jowar mixed with the creamy sweetness of coconut offered a deeply gratifying feeling of comfort. It was a reminder to me that tradition doesn’t have to be static, but it can transform, nourish, and remain relevant.