Pori Urundai | Sweet Puffed Rice Balls

Karthigai Deepam / Thirukarthigai is a festival of lights celebrated in South India and falls on the Tamil month of Karthigai. There are many interesting stories behind observing this festival. In the evening of the festival day, oil lamps are lit up in houses and streets. The lighting of lamps is considered very auspicious and brings in prosperity and happiness in the home.

On karthigai festival, we put kolams, decorate the whole house with oil lamps and make neivedhyam (sweets). Pori urundai is a traditional sweet made during Karthigai festival. It can be made with nel pori or aval pori. As I don’t get nel pori here, I made with arisi pori (puffed rice). These sweet puffed rice balls also make a healthy after-school snack for kids. 

Pori Urundai

Sweet puffed balls with jaggery, coconut, dry ginger and cardamom powder

Print Pin Recipe

Servings 12

Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 25 minutes mins

Ingredients

• ½ cup grated jaggery
• ¼ cup water
• 2 tsp ghee
• 4 cups puffed rice / pori
• ¼ cup thin coconut slivers
• ¼ tsp dry ginger powder
• ½ tsp cardamom powder
• Rice flour to dust hands

Instructions

• In a small pan, heat ½ tsp ghee and fry the coconut slivers for 2-3 minutes. Set aside.
• Heat a kadai and add jaggery and water. Melt the jaggery completely and strain it to remove any impurities.
• Wash the kadai and add the strained jaggery syrup to it. Cook the syrup over medium flame until it becomes frothy and thick.
• Add few drops of the syrup in a plate of water. The syrup should not dissolve and if we collect the syrup together, it should form a soft ball.
• This is the required consistency of the jaggery syrup. Remove from heat and add remaining ghee, coconut slivers, dry ginger powder, cardamom powder and puffed rice.
• Quickly combine everything until the puffed rice is well coated with syrup. When the mixture is warm, grease hands with oil/ghee and roll tightly into balls.

Notes

• Use dark colored jaggery (paagu vellam) for making these balls.
• The soft-ball consistency stage is very important for this recipe. If removed in the wrong stage, you will not be able to form the balls or the balls will become very hard.
• If the puffed rice mixture completely cools down, it will be difficult to form balls. In this case, heat the mixture lightly to melt the syrup and make balls.

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Indian