Gothambu Ada ~ Wheat Ada

At times, I am late with my weekend updates, but that’s OK. The purpose of this blog is to keep my memories and feelings alive. Sometimes, I randomly pick up an old post and read through, and really think what actually made me write all those. 🙂

On Wednesday night, I had a call from an Oman number. I picked up and it was my bestie online! She was already on the way and was calling to ask my location. I pinched myself to believe it’s true! A couple of days before that, we had chatted and she was skeptical about them coming. I had already given up myself to destiny, but then that call woke me up again. She arrived, we chatted, we went for a late night drive and slept late. She did go to where they had intended to go on Thursday morning, but Alhamdulillah, I was just glad that I could see her once again before she disappears to India once and for all. She had come to Muscat for 10 days to finally segregate all their belongings and this trip happened all of a sudden. I somehow wonder how the Almighty loves to surprise us, irrespective of whether the surprise is small or big… Alhamdulillah for everything… that’s all I can say! The weekend went off in a daze, with some mall trotting, some sadya time with HD’s folks on Friday, and some time spent with another college mate yesterday. Definitely a hectic week, but I did enjoy my time! 🙂

Ada is a very comforting Malabar snack. Something that is made at the spur of the moment… Though making it with rice flour dough is more traditional, as is in the blood of Malabar women, they always look for ways of diversifying their snacks. While the traditional one demands a little bit of extra work, the recipe I am sharing today uses the ever available wholewheat floor or aatta, that we use to make chapathis and pooris, prepared as the base with the a sweet and mildly spiced filling of coconut and made up within no time. Each time I land up with banana leaves, I try to make adas. But even if you don’t get the leaves, you can just steam it up and have it. But the taste that the banana leaves give to it is unexplainable. Moreover, it doubles up like a “plate” so that you are saved of the coconut drippings too! 😀

A few pointers here – you don’t need to knead the dough like you would do for chapathis. Just bring them together till nice and moist. Kneading them too much will give you hard adas, that wouldn’t feel good in the mouth. Also, if you don’t have banana leaves, you can steam it as is or wrapped up in aluminum foil, though I prefer the former. All in all, it’s a very comforting snack which comes together in very little time… Off to the recipe…

5 from 1 vote

Gothambu Ada ~ Wheat Ada

Course Snacks

Cuisine Malabar

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes minutes

Total Time 35 minutes minutes

Servings 3 -4

Author Rafeeda

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole wheat flour aatta
• A pinch of salt
• Lukewarm water for dough
• Banana leaf as needed optional
• FOR FILLING:
• 3/4 cup fresh grated coconut
• A fat pinch of cardamom
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp ghee

Instructions

• Knead the flour with salt and water till a soft dough is obtained. Allow to rest for ten minutes.
• Mix the ingredients for the filling and set aside.
• If using banana leaves for wrapping, wash it well and run it lightly over flame till it changes color. This is to avoid it from breaking. Cut into square shapes and set aside.
• Divide the dough into 8-10 balls.
• Rub oil on hand and flatten the ball as thin as possible on a leaf. Put a spoonful of filling and close tight.
• Repeat for the remaining dough and filling.
• Heat water in a steamer. Keep the prepared adas in the steaming vessel and allow it to steam for 10 minutes. It is ready when the leaf peels off easily.
• Take off and allow to cool. Serve for chai time!

Notes

If you don't have banana leaf, you can use aluminuim foil to wrap.
Another way to do is to keep one banana leaf on the steaming plate, line up the adas and then top with one more, and then steam.