Halasina hannina Genasale or kadubu/ Steamed sweet Jackfruit jaggery stuffed rice dumplings

This sweet dish is a seasonal delicacy of Dakshina Kannada and Malnad region. This traditional dish is served as breakfast or as evening snack. It is prepared in the evening and served next morning generally. It is worth trying though the process of making it is time consuming and complicated too. It is loaded with carbohydrates & sugar. So it is suggested to eat monitoring the sugar level if diabetic and if a weight watcher. Except sweet, it is a healthy option as it is nutritionally rich & steam cooked.

It is prepared in different steps of preparing rice batter, coconut- jaggery – jackfruit sweet stuffing, cleaning the banana leaves and finally is enclosed in the leaves and steam cooked.

There are many variations possible with infused turmeric flavour by adding turmeric leaves while cooking and without jackfruit if it is not a season. If you want to try non sweet kadubu/ pathrode recipes then go to Cucumber Kadubu/ Mullusouthe Kottige, Pathrode/ Pathrade, CucumberIdli / Southe Idli… Also check for Jackfruit recipes such as Eggless NuttyJackfruit & Tender coconut Cupcakes, Jackfruit Phirni…

Plain coconut – jaggery genasale/ kadubu (without jackfruit) is offered to goddess Durga/ Devi as neivedyam for durga pooja happens during Navarathri night or Trikala pooja. It is served as prasadam with the meal after pooja. Now let us come to the process of making genasale.

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 45 minutes

Serves: 12 small kadubu

Ingredients:

Dosa rice (white) – 1.5 cups

Chopped jackfruit – 1 cup

Fresh grated coconut – 1 cup

Jaggery – ½ cup, adjust depending on the sweetness of jackfruit available

Salt – to taste (1.5 tsp for the batter & stuffing)

Coconut oil/ ghee – 2-3 tsp

Method:

• Wash and soak dosa rice for 4 hours.
• Cut jackfruit, collect the bulbs and remove seeds and outer white fibres. Have only yellow fruit part.
• Chop these collected fruit bulb. Easy way to do this is, take cleaned bulbs in a dry mixer jar and churn 2-3 times. You will get the result as desired. Finish off all the fruits same way.
• Grate fresh coconut (half of big coconut should be enough).
• Grate jaggery and mix with grated coconut.
• Mix chopped/ churned jackfruit & ¼ tsp salt to the coconut – jaggery mix and set aside covered.
• Now prepare the rice batter with soaked rice. To make this, wash soaked rice, add salt and water as required and grind to get smooth batter. It should be little thicker than neer dosa batter.
• Transfer this rice batter to a bowl. Add oil/ ghee and keep that too aside.
• Now take banana leaves, wipe with a clean cloth. Wilt these leaves holding on fire/ gas flame.
• Wash wilted banana leaves clean. Wipe with a dry cloth (optional).
• Spread these cleaned leaves on a flat surface/ on floor.
• Spread about ½ ladle rice batter on one leaf like dosa. You can do it with your hand if you are comfortable so.
• Top 2-3 tbsp of the jackfruit - coconut – jaggery mix prepared earlier covering half of the spread batter (as shown in the pics).
• Fold the banana leaves as shown in the image starting from the side where there is no sweet mix topped.
• Finish all the batter and jackfruit coconut mix following same process.
• Take a steamer with sufficient water. Place the folded kadubu/ genesale in it, leaving the space for the steam to circulate.
• Cook for 40 – 45 minutes. That is initially with high flame. Simmer when the steam starts coming out and after that it will require 25-30 minutes.
• Serve this aromatic & tasty kadubu/ genasale when warm with a dollop of ghee or coconut oil and coconut chutney if needed.

1. Making

2. Folding & steaming

Notes:

• Jackfruit can be replaced with coconut & jaggery mix only to make Kai genasale or Coconut jaggery Kadubu.
• 1-2 fresh turmeric leaves can be kept inside steamer while cooking kadubus to make flavoured kadubu (infused kadubu).
• The sweet mix (Coconut, jaggery & jackfruit) can be mixed with the thick rice batter and folded inside the banana leaves to make kottige which is steam cooked. It is the variant of jackfruit kadubu and the process is simpler than genasale. Change is just mixing instead stuffing and rest of the procedure remains same.
•  The aroma fills inside the home while cooking this dish.
• Shelf-life of this is 1 day generally if kept outside the refrigerator.

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