Ela-Ada (Ada)

Ela-Ada or Ada as it is commonly known is a traditional dish of Kerala and also a steamed food similar to many other steamed foods that form part of Kerala Cuisine. 

Ada is basically, grated coconut -Jagree mixture pressed in between rice dough, wrapped in banana leaves and steam cooked.

Ada is a perfect food for evening tea and there are very few who dont like this sweet dish. Children and elders, all like this sweet. 

Lets see how to make this simple dish.

Ingrediants:

Rice flour- 2 cups

Coconut- 1/2, grated

Jagree - 100 gms scraped or powdered

Cardamom - 2-3 pods powdered

Oil - preferably sesame/gingelly (til) - 2 teaspoons

Fresh Green Plantain leaves - 7 to 8 pieces of around 7-8 inches each of length and breadth. 

Hot water (preferred) - 1 cup

Salt - 1/2 teaspoon

Dough

Steps:

Preparing the dough:

Take 2 cups of rice flour in a  vessel.  Add  1/2 teasspoon of salt. Pour one cup of  hot water into the flour. While pouring the hot water, keep stirring  the water and flour well so that the hot water gets uniformly added to the complete flour. Knead the mix well to prepare the dough. 

Use of hot water makes the dough and hence the final product soft. Then put one teaspoon of  gingelly oil to make it  even more softer and tastier. The final dough will resemble the dough prepared for chappathi.

Preparing the filler:

Take one half of a medium sized coconut and grate it completely. Mix powdered Jagree (Sharkara/vellam/gud), powdered cardamom (elakkya/elaichi) into this grated coconut and mix thoroughly. Keep this aside. 

Filler Steps - grated coconut > Jagree and powdered cardamom mixed > close-up view of the filler

Making the Ada:

Take a plantain leaf of the size mentioned above. 

Take some dough (table tennis ball size) and spread it in the leaf with your hand. While spreading it, you must wet your hands either with sesame oil or with water so that the dough doesnot stick to your fingers. 

The spread out dough should be around 3-4 mm thick (unlike chapati which is thinner). The diameter of the spread out dough would be approx. 5-6 inch.

Take a half-handful of the prepared jagree-grated coconut mix and place it inside the dough spread on the banana leaf. Spread out the coconut-jagree mix also a bit it into the dough spread. Close the banana leaf from all sides.

Dough spread on the bana leaf > Filler added>Leaf folded and closed

Steaming:

Take a idli cooker - in case you dont have a Idli cooker, an ordinary pressure cooker also will suffice, DONOT USE THE  WHISTLE. Pour 3-4 glasses of water into it, and place the closed banana leaves on the idli stand. In case you dont have a idli vessel with idli stand/plate, you can use a wide mouthed vessel inside which you can place the closed banana leaves containing the Ada and place the vessel inside the cooker. 

Cooked Ada

Steam on low flame for about 10 min. Once the Ada is cooked, you would feel the smell of the cooked banana leaves and the Ada. After 10 min, turn off the flame. Open the cooker after 5-7 minutes of turning off the flame. 

Ela-Ada is ready. 7 to 8 Adas can be prepared...

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