MUSSELS ON STEAMED RICE DOUGH (ARI KADUKKA)

It's Ramadan 2018 and I have a craving for ari kadukka. Mussels are hard to come by in Toronto. I get mussels in shells. There's hard work involved and I can confidently say I would not attempt it often, even if I lived in Calicut, with access to the right ingredients. I tried to make ari kadukka in Toronto with New Zealand mussels in a half shell. I was shocked to find that mussels have filaments to adhere to surfaces. The process of cleaning this little 'rope' is called debearding. A revolting process with an obnoxious name! It went downhill quickly. Ropes, shells, cutting off sacs of dirt - it was too much. I suppressed all cravings and shoved ari kadukka thoughts far, far on the back burner. Then as luck would have it, I chanced upon a bag of cooked mussels in the frozen food section of my local super market. Suddenly, I was considering a modified recipe. A purist will scoff at my feeble attempt. When I made them today for Iftaar, my husband said it was better than any he has had back in Calicut. Praise indeed. But that's a wild leap of imagination. There are home cooks in Calicut, more talented that I will ever be, and their ari kadukka is a delicacy.  

Here is my ari kadukka recipe for people in Toronto, who are wondering what to do with a bag of frozen cooked mussels.

Ingredients

Neyypathal dough - refer Neyypathal Recipe for instructions to make dough

Mussels 

Chilli powder - 1 level tsp (I used Simla Mirch chilli powder for this recipe)

Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Salt - to taste

Water - to make a paste of the above three ingredients

Oil for frying

Clean the mussels. Cut off the little black sac of dirt. Apparently, they can be eaten with the little black sac and no harm is done. I prefer not to.

Shape the dough into little asymmetrical 'pyramids' and embed a mussel into each piece of shaped dough.

Grease a colander and arrange all the pieces of dough in the colander.  

Bring water to boil in a small pot. Arrange colander on top of the pot.  

Cover with a lid and steam on medium heat for about six minutes.

Transfer steamed ari kadukkas to a plate.  Make a paste of the chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt - a creamy paste that is a little bit runny.

Coat all the ari kadukkas with this paste and set aside.

Heat oil in a pan at medium heat.  Arrange ari kadukkas in the pan in a single layer.  When one side is cooked, turn them over.  You want a nice firm texture but not so hard and crisp, that they have dried out while frying.

Ari kadukkas are done when all the sides have been fried to a nice colour and the mussels on top have fried too.  

These are very nice to have with a hot cup of tea or coffee.