Chakkara choru / Whole wheat Dessert

Chakkarachoru or sharkkara choru is one of the famous desserts found in Malabar Muslim households occassionally made during traditional festives. Sakkara is jaggery and choru is rice; though both these are not used in the recipe these days. My dad loves this with jaggery ,but we like it with sugar; so mom has to make both the versions everytime. I could see many varieties of this dish online from different regions of South India. Ours is slightly different. Let's move on to the recipe. 

Whole wheat is cooked in coconut milk, sweetened with sugar and flavoured with cardamom to bring out the best of the sweet dishes prepared in Malabar.

INGREDIENTS

Wholewheat  1 cup

Onion  4 tbsp

Coconut  4 cups

Chana dal 1/4 cup

Salt 1/2 tsp

Sugar 1  cup or more

Cardamom powder a generous pinch

 Method:

1. Blend coconut by adding4 cups of water to it. Strain milk using a strainer. Squeeze out the coconut pulp to extract maximum milk as possible.This is first milk. Keep it aside. Use the coconut solids after extracting milk to extract the second milk.

2. Pour 6 cups of water to the coconut solids and blend again. Squeeze out the milk using a strainer. This is called thin milk or second milk.

3. Add second milk, wholewheat, onion and salt in a pressure cooker . Lower the flame after first whistle and simmer in cooker for about 25-30 minutes or until the wheat cooks well.

4. Boil chana dal in another pan till it cooks well but crunch remains.

5. Add sugar and first milk to the cooked wheat. Stir well until it boils nicely and thickens.

6. Add cooked bengal gram to it and stir well. Sprinkle cardamom powder to it. Check the taste and add more salt or sugar if needed.