Chakka Varatti

Kerala's jackfruit halwa: ripe jackfruit cooked down in a heavy pan with jaggery and ghee for the best part of an hour until dark, glossy, and thick enough to keep for months

Origin: Kerala, India

From the journey of Jackfruit.

Chakka varatti, also chakka varattiyathu, and in English jackfruit halwa or jackfruit preserve, is how Kerala keeps the ripe jackfruit. Varatti means something cooked down in the pan, and that is the whole method: the ripe bulbs are cooked soft, puréed, and stirred over a moderate fire in a heavy bronze uruli with jaggery and ghee, spoonful after spoonful, until the mass turns dark and glossy and pulls away from the sides. Packed into a jar it keeps for months, so that the glut of the season becomes a store for the rest of the year: eaten by the spoonful, spread inside steamed ada and kumbilappam, and thinned with coconut milk into chakka pradhaman, the jackfruit payasam of the Kerala feast. Cooks prefer the firm varikka for it, because its thick flesh gives a fleshy, smooth paste, to the soft and stringy koozha. The cooking is slow and cannot be left: once the paste thickens it catches in moments.

Ingredients

  • 1 kg ripe jackfruit bulbs, preferably firm varikka, seeded and chopped
  • 100 ml water, for cooking the jackfruit
  • 400 g dark jaggery, grated
  • 100 ml water, for melting the jaggery
  • 120 g ghee
  • 1 tsp ground cardamom

Method

  1. Oil your hands before handling the ripe fruit. Cook the chopped jackfruit with the 100 ml of water, covered, for 10 to 12 minutes, until soft, then purée it coarsely.
  2. Melt the jaggery in its water over a low heat and strain it to remove any grit.
  3. In a heavy pan, ideally a bronze uruli or a thick-based wok, cook the purée with the jaggery syrup over a moderate heat, stirring constantly.
  4. Add the ghee a spoonful at a time as the mixture thickens, and keep stirring for 45 minutes to an hour, until the paste is dark brown and glossy, leaves the sides of the pan cleanly, and holds its shape.
  5. Stir in the cardamom, take the pan off the heat, and leave the varatti to cool completely before packing it into a clean, dry jar.

Notes

Kept in the refrigerator and spooned out with a dry spoon, chakka varatti lasts for months. It is the base of chakka pradhaman and can stand in for the cooked fruit in kumbilappam, both of which the atlas carries.

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