Therattipal

Therattipal is a sweet from Tamil Nadu made by slowly reducing milk. In the pot, the milk thickens and eventually turns into a soft confection with a grainy texture. Using palm sugar adds a deep color and aroma, and some versions are finished with white sugar instead.

Reducing the Milk and Forming the Grains

In one Chettinad example, milk is reduced in a wide, heavy-bottomed pot. For instance, 1 liter of milk is heated and stirred until it reduces to about 180 milliliters, then palm jaggery that has been melted and strained is added and the mixture is thickened further. As the liquid decreases, the milk sticks to the bottom of the pot more easily, so the milk clinging to the sides is also scraped down and stirred in. Because it becomes noticeably firmer as it cools, it feels different under the spoon when hot and after it has cooled.

As the milk simmers, water evaporates and the milk’s fat, protein and lactose become concentrated. In another method, slightly sour curd is added to coagulate part of the milk, giving it a grainy texture before it is sweetened. Therattipal thus has versions that differ in how the grains are formed and in the sweetener used.

Cook Suguna Vinodh adds jaggery to the reduced milk and, even after turning off the heat, lets it cool while folding it over as she stirs. Once grains can be felt on the palate, she wraps it in paper in bite-sized portions. This finish was inspired by the image of the sweet being portioned out as an offering at the Andal temple in Srivilliputhur.

A Milk Sweet on the Festival Plate

In Nattukottai Nagarathar households in Chettinad, there are examples of this sweet being made for Pillaiyar Nonbu, a festival associated with the god Ganesha. For the festival, small cone-shaped ilai are made from rice flour and palm sugar, and a wick is inserted before they are offered. Both the ilai and the milk sweet are foods of this festival.

One cook remembers ilai being handed out at gatherings of relatives and the community when she was a child. Some households observed the festival with family only, while others gathered and brought dishes to share. For her, therattipal sweetened with palm sugar was a special dish on that day’s table.

The same milk sweet is also prepared for weddings and housewarming celebrations. Palkova from Srivilliputhur is also known as a sweet made by reducing milk, and its name and preparation overlap in part with therattipal. In families with roots in Thanjavur, therattipal may refer to a sweet made with coconut. In one example, grated coconut, jaggery, rice and cardamom are ground with water, the moisture is cooked off in a pot, and cashews roasted in ghee are mixed in. However, the use of sugar or palm sugar and the method of making the milk grainy differ from one sweet to another, so the regionally named palkova and therattipal as a whole cannot be reduced to a single recipe.

Palkova. 2015, Chozha / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Downscaled version from the source; no content changes after retrieval.

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