Aggala (අග්ගලා) are small Sri Lankan sweets made from roasted rice flour bound with hot jaggery syrup or kithul treacle, a little grated coconut and a good pinch of black pepper, then rolled into balls and dusted with more roasted flour. They are not fried or baked: the roasting of the flour is the only real cooking, and the syrup does the rest. The result is a dense, slightly chewy sweet with a toasty flavour and a peppery warmth at the finish, which is what sets aggala apart from most other Sri Lankan sweetmeats.
Aggala is a village tea-time sweet, eaten with a cup of plain tea in the afternoon, and it also appears among the home-made sweets of the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in April, alongside kokis and kavum. Older recipes start from boiled rice that is sun-dried, roasted and ground at home; the version below starts from ordinary rice flour, which most cooks now use.
How to make aggala
- Makes about 16 aggala
- Prep: 10 minutes
- Cook: 20 minutes (+ 10 minutes cooling)
- Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients
- 250 g (about 2 cups) rice flour, red or white, roasted as below; 30 g of it held back for coating
- 150 g jaggery (hakuru), grated, or 120 ml kithul treacle
- 60 ml water (only if using jaggery)
- 40 g (1/2 cup) freshly grated coconut or desiccated coconut (optional)
- 1/2 to 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 tsp salt
Method
- Roast the flour. Put the rice flour in a dry, heavy pan over a low to medium heat and stir constantly for 8 to 10 minutes, until it smells toasty and turns a pale biscuit colour. Tip it onto a plate to cool, then sift out any lumps.
- Set some aside. Spoon about 30 g (4 tbsp) of the roasted flour into a shallow bowl for coating. Mix the rest with the pepper, salt and coconut.
- Make the syrup. Melt the grated jaggery with the water in a wide pan over a medium heat, stirring, then let it bubble for 3 to 4 minutes until it thickens slightly and coats a spoon. If using kithul treacle, simply warm it for 2 to 3 minutes until it starts to bubble.
- Bring it together. Take the pan off the heat and add the flour mixture a few spoonfuls at a time, stirring hard with a wooden spoon, until you have a thick, slightly sticky paste that leaves the sides of the pan. If it stays crumbly, add hot water a teaspoon at a time.
- Cool a little. Leave the mixture for about 10 minutes, until it is cool enough to handle but still warm and pliable.
- Roll the balls. With lightly oiled or damp hands, press walnut-sized portions (about 20 g each) firmly and roll them into smooth balls, 2 to 3 cm across.
- Coat and cool. Roll each ball in the reserved roasted flour until evenly dusted. Leave them on a plate to cool completely and firm up before storing.
Why is the rice flour roasted?
Aggala is never cooked after it is shaped, so roasting is what takes away the raw taste of the flour and gives the sweet its nutty, toasted flavour and pale brown colour. Roast slowly and keep stirring: flour that scorches turns bitter and cannot be rescued. Some cooks roast whole rice with the peppercorns and grind them together, which gives the same result with a stronger pepper aroma.
Jaggery or kithul treacle?
Both are used. Grated palm or kithul jaggery melted with a little water gives a firmer ball with a deeper, caramel flavour. Kithul treacle, the syrup boiled down from the sap collected in kithul palm tapping, gives a softer, stickier aggala. Honey or sugar syrup can stand in if neither is available, although the taste is lighter. Whichever you use, the mixture should be sticky enough to hold when squeezed; a mixture that is too wet will not keep its shape, and one that is too dry cracks and crumbles.
What variations are there?
- Without coconut: the plainest aggala is just roasted flour, treacle, salt and pepper, and it keeps the longest.
- Spiced: some households add a pinch of ground cinnamon or cardamom with the pepper.
- Sesame coating: roll the balls in lightly toasted sesame seeds instead of flour.
- Bath aggala: a thrifty home version in which leftover cooked rice is dried, toasted and ground in place of the flour, then mixed with grated coconut and sugar.
How long does aggala keep?
Made without fresh coconut, aggala keeps for several days in an airtight tin at room temperature, somewhere cool and dry. Fresh grated coconut makes it spoil much sooner, so eat that version within a day or two, and use desiccated coconut or leave the coconut out if you are making a batch ahead for the New Year.
What is served with aggala?
Aggala is usually eaten on its own with plain tea. At the New Year table, laid at the auspicious time given in the Avurudu nakath, it sits among the other festival sweets such as aluwa and kavum. For a sweet made on a very different principle, try pani kadju, a Sri Lankan cashew brittle; for more of the island's traditional confectionery, see Sri Lankan sweets.
