Belam Taalikalu / Rice Noodles in jaggery

Taalikalu are made in 2 different ways - with Belam (jaggery) and with Paalu (milk) called Paalu taalikalu.
We make this especially for Lord Vinayaka on Ganesh Chathurthi!
I learnt how to make both as Belam Taalikalu are made at my Mom's and Paalu Taalikalu are made at my MIL's. Belam Taalikalu have always been my favorite as I have been eating them from my childhood. Paalu Taalikalu do also taste good, They taste more like Payasam only with a longer process!!
Both have to be made with home made rice flour for sure. I have noticed that if you make it with the store bought rice flours, the noodles tend to break up in small pieces and the whole dish getting mushy. With freshly made rice flour, the noodles do break, , but atleast they hold their shape. Its better to use a wide bottomed pan and take care as not to mix them too much so that they don't break.
It tastes yummy when eaten topped with fresh grated coconut and drops of ghee. Therefore extra ghee and coconut are optional.
It does take a long time to make this cos, you have to roll out enough snaky noodles.
You can always grind the rice flour the previous day. When we were young, me and my siblings used to sit and make these noodles while my Mom and Granny cook the pindi vantalu for the puja Naivedhyam.
Use your judgement as to how sweet it should be and increase or decrease the amount of jaggery used. You can always add jaggery in the end if you think it's not sweet enough!

Ingredients:

2 cups Home made rice flour + extra for rolling
3 1/2 cups water + more if needed
1 1/2 cup jaggery, crumbled
Big pinch of elaichi or cardamom powder
2 tbsp ghee

Toppings:

Fresh grated coconut
few drops of ghee

Method:

Bring little more than a cup of water to boil in a wide pot. Add in the rice flour slowly, taking care that no lumps are formed. Mix well so that the rice flour gets cooked. If you think that it is too hard to stir, add in more water. It should come together nicely like chapatti dough, not too hard or too soft. This process shouldn't take much time. Let it cool down, so that now you can roll them into long snakes and keep aside.
If you have kids who love playing with play dough, get them to help you with it!:))
Now melt the jaggery in a wide bottomed pot with atleast 2 cups of water. When it starts bubbling, drop in the rolled snakes into the jaggery and mix very gently, so that they don't break. Even if the break make sure that they don't break into tiny pieces. It will thicken soon enough and then you can remove from flame, maybe in about 5 min. The consistency should be like that of payasam but more thicker since it's rice flour.
It's yummy when eaten hot or warm topped with fresh grated coconut and drops of ghee.
Serve God and Enjoy!!!

Sending this to Preeti @ Khaugiri for the 'ONLY' Festive event, started by Pari @ Foodelicious