Patholeo

A SEASONAL Konkan delicacy I love to make during the monsoons is what's called patholi or patholeo (plural) in Konkani. The turmeric, with its huge healing and antiseptic properties is a rhizome that lies buried in the soil and the fresh, new leaves it sprouts during the rainy season, are used as wrappers for these rolls. A row of turmeric that I had planted in a corner of our building garden was thriving until a new gardener who was ignorant about these plants uprooted them all. Fortunately, I discovered the damage before it was too late and saved a few of them. From these I managed to harvest a few leaves for the patholeo.

My kids don’t relish this robust, rustic snack, whose main ingredients are red boiled rice, coconut and jaggery. Nevertheless I make it at least once or twice a year, if only to keep in touch with our traditional cuisine and also for distribution among a few of my friends and relatives who love to eat it, but think that making it is drudgery. I too thought it was hard work, until I actually got down to making them and realized that it wasn’t such a chore after all.

For 10 leaves I used:

2 cups of red boiled rice soaked in water overnight
Fresh gratings of half a coconut
Powdered jaggery – about 5-6 tablespoons or to taste
5 cardamoms, powdered
Salt to taste for the batter
A teeny weeny pinch of salt for the filling too.

Grind the rice to a thick, fine batter, adding salt to taste. When grinding in an electric blender, you will necessarily have to add water but keep the quantity to a bare minimum. Even so, the batter will be extra moist. To make it just dry enough to enable patting on to the leaf, just add a few tablespoons of readymade rice flour and mix it in with a spatula, or better still by hand. Grinding a few tablespoons of coconut with the rice enhances the taste, but I simply added about 3-4 tablespoons of Maggi coconut milk powder. A sucker for shortcuts, I’ve found that this works very well indeed and no one will be the wiser for it, because it tastes just as good.

For the filling, mix the coconut, jaggery and cardamom powder and a tiny pinch of salt. Set aside. Wash and wipe the leaves. Snip off the tip and base. Place the leaf on a flat surface, smooth side up. Lightly dip your fingers in a bowl of water, take a handful of the rice batter and pat it on to the leaf, spreading it evenly from top to bottom to cover the entire leaf.

There are two ways to fold the leaf. You can fold it from the base upwards to the tip (as shown above) in which case, spread the batter on to the whole leaf, but place the filling on the top half of the leaf, about half a cm away from the edges of the rice layer. Press the edges lightly to seal.

The leaf can also be folded lengthwise along its spine (as shown below). In this case, the filling needs to be spread from the tip to the base on one half of the leaf, keeping the spine as the divider. Fold lengthwise along the spine and press the edges lightly to seal.

The pictures above will give you a fair idea of how to go about it. Not complicated at all.

Fill up to half, a steaming vessel with water and when it begins to boil, place the rolls on the perforated separator in the steamer. Close and steam for 20 minutes.

Serve the rolls with the leaf on, but unwrap before eating. The turmeric leaves impart a lovely fragrance to the rolls, but be warned that this is an acquired taste. From those tasting it for the first time, it can evoke reactions as varied as “Hmmm…interesting” to “Hmmm…this is something different” which makes me wonder if they’re only being very polite!