Ukadiche modak
Preparation Time
20 minutes
Cooking Time
40 minutes
Difficulty Level
moderate
Meal Type
Dessert
Serves 12
Key Ingredients
- Jaggery powder
About This Recipe
Ukadiche modak is the steamed sweet dumpling with a rice-flour shell and a jaggery-coconut centre. The same dumpling is called kozhukattai further south, so this is close to a kozhukattai recipe with gur; the red rice upma kozhukattai swaps the sweet filling for a savoury upma. The shell here follows the boiled-water method: rice flour cooked in hot water first, then steamed.
The hot-water ratio is what stops the cracks. One cup of rice flour takes one cup of water at a full boil; the boiling water cooks the flour so the dough turns elastic, and the kneaded ball stays soft under a damp cloth. Dough that dries out, or is rolled too thin, is where cracked modaks come from.
The filling is cooked until it leaves the sides of the pan and looks moist but not wet; a runny filling leaks through the pleats and tears the shell in the steamer. Twelve modaks steam in 10 to 12 minutes. They keep for two days chilled and revive with a few minutes back in the steamer.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
Filling
- Fresh coconut, grated — 1 cup
- Jaggery powder — 150 g
- Cardamom Powder — 1/4 tsp
Dough
- Rice flour — 1 cup
- Ghee (1 tbsp in the filling, 1 tsp in the dough, the rest to grease and drizzle) — 2 tbsp
- Water — 1 cup
- Salt — 1/4 tsp
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Serving Suggestions
Serve warm with the last of the ghee drizzled over, on their own or with a glass of warm milk. They also sit well in a tiffin once cooled. The pleats hold the filling even when the shells cool. For more jaggery sweets, see the jaggery recipes roundup.
Tips for Cooking Ukadiche modak
Grease your palms before touching the dough and again between modaks; the dough is sticky while warm. Keep the unshaped dough under a damp cloth so it cannot dry out. Seal the pleats firmly or the filling leaks during steaming. Steam one test modak first if the batch is your first; a shell that tears before steaming only gets worse inside the steamer.
Chef’s Note
One modak comes to about 67 kcal from the jaggery and ghee that are counted. No composition values are printed for rice flour or fresh coconut, so the number shown is an undercount; the coconut and the shell add a little more. Eat them the day they are made for the softest shells.
Per serving (approx.): 67 kcal, protein 0.2 g, carbs 11 g, fat 2.5 g, fibre 0 g. Computed from IFCT 2017 / USDA values for the listed quantities. Measures: 1 cup = 240 ml, 1 tbsp = 15 ml, 1 tsp = 5 ml.
Happy Cooking
!!
ByCOWBERRY
May 06, 2026
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