Pori Urundai (South Indian Puffed Rice Balls)

My 234th recipe, "Pori Urundai (South Indian Puffed Rice Balls)", a Karthigai Deepam special. Wish you all a very “Happy Karthigai Deepam”.  Let your life shine as bright as the “Deepam”, with happiness and joy. It was on this Karthigai Deepam day last year, I had started blogging with all eagerness. I have to say now that it was not at all a bad decision. The last year of blogging has been terrific and rewarding.

Karthigai Deepam is celebrated based on the Tamil calendar which is a lunar calendar. Hence this year around the day has fallen a couple of weeks earlier compared to last year. So the actual blog anniversary celebration has to wait for a couple more weeks 🙂 My mom usually makes some kind of Indian sweet for Karthigai Deepam and also decorate our house with earthen oil lamps. So last year I had made kaju katli for the celebration. However it is a tradition in many of the Tamil households to make pori urundai on this auspicious day. So, this year around I decided to stick with the tradition.

Pori urundai is in fact a very easy to make dessert. And while growing up it was one of my favorite snacks too. You can see me happily munching away a pori urundai even though it was actually larger than my mouth 😉 For folks who are not aware, Pori Urundai is the Indian version of a Rice treat made using puffed rice. It is comparatively healthier with the use of jaggery instead of refined sugar. While the Puffed rice adds the perfect crispiness, the ginger and cardamon powders impart lots of flavor to this pori urundai making it one of my all time favorites 🙂

Pori Urundai

Pori Urundai

Revathi Palani

Pori Urundai is a traditional South Indian sweet made with puffed rice, jaggery and flavored with cardamom, ginger powders. It is perfectly sweet n crispy.

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Total Time 10 minutes mins

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine Indian

Servings 10

Ingredients

  

• ½ Cup Water
• ½ Cup Jaggery
• ¼ tsp Cardamom powder (adjust per taste)
• ¼ tsp Dry ginger powder (adjust per taste)
• 4 Cups Pori | Puffed Rice

Instructions

 

• First heat a heavy bottom pan with water and jaggery in low flame. Keep stirring until the jaggery dissolves in the water.
  
  
   
• Use a metal mesh filter and filter the jaggery syrup. Return the syrup back to the pan and increase the flame to medium. Add the cardamom and dry ginger powder and continue to stir until the mixture bubbles nicely and reaches the correct consistency. To check for the right consistency, Keep water in a small bowl. Add a drop of the jaggery syrup into the water and then try to roll it into a ball. When you are able to form a ball, it is the right consistency for the jaggery syrup. Turn off the flame.
  
  
   
  
   
  
   
• Quickly, add the pori (puffed rice) to the pan and mix well until everything is combined and the pori is nicely coated.
  
  
   
• Immediately, while the mixture is still hot, grease your palms with oil / ghee and shape it into balls.
  
  
   
• Store in an airtight container and enjoy.

Notes | FAQ

- It is critical to act quickly once the jaggery syrup consistency is reached.

- Take care while shaping the balls, as the mixture will be still hot.

- You need not roll the balls tightly. The balls will solidify and retain their shapes after cooling.

- Instead of rolling it into balls, you can also transfer the mixture to a baking pan, flatten it out and cut into cubes like rice krispie treats.