Recipe to make Therattipal/Thirattupal:

• Choose a heavy bottom pan preferably a non-stick one. The heavy bottom pan maintains the heat evenly throughout the dish and doesn't get burnt easily.
• Add 1.5 lit of whole milk(full-fat milk) and start boiling.
• Keep the heat to a medium-high setting. Electric coil burner stoves may become hot slowly but stay very hot for a long time. Hence do not keep on full high.
• Keep stirring occasionally. If your pan is wide and deep and heavy you can relax a little bit during the first few minutes.
• After around 15 mins the milk starts boiling and bubbling.
• Do not stop stirring constantly. Use a wooden long spoon to avoid scratches on the pan.
• If you feel the milk is bubbling out of the pan, you can adjust the heat as and when needed.
• Soon the milk becomes thick and starts reducing in quantity. This happens after around 30 minutes of continuous cooking.
• The excess water evaporates soon and malai layers will form on the sides of the pan.
• Keep scratching the sides and the bottom of the pan to avoid burning and to collect the malai layers.
• My pan gave the milk a very mild bit of scorching which I allowed deliberately because I like the taste of caramelized effect on the milk.
• The milk after around 40 to 50 minutes of continuous cooking will reduce almost half. That is around 3/4 l of thick creamy milk.
• At this time we can reduce the heat to medium and keep cooking.
• Soon after ten minutes the moisture of the milk disappear completely and thick mawa or khova or khoya(milk solids)forms. It took 45 minutes for my milk to reach this stage.
• At this stage, add 3/4 cup of powdered jaggery(broken vellam) and mix well.
• The kova mixture becomes thin again. Continue stirring until the mixture is coming together. The mixture will tend to stick to the pan. Scrap with the ladle and do the job of collecting constantly.
• After ten minutes of doing the same, the thirattupal or therattipal is finally ready.
• The Palgova will get a glistening look because of the natural ghee it releases. Remember we didn't add any ghee to our thirattupal.
• At this stage, if you like, sprinkle few pinches of cardamom powder and some nuts and a tbsp of ghee. I wanted to show the traditional thirattipaal hence I didn't add any of these extras.
• Switch off, collect the jaggery palgova alias thirattipaal in a cup. Let it cool before storing in a closed container.
• Serve this palkova warm. I don't like the chilled version but you can try. If stored in refrigerator a few seconds of microwave heating before serving is recommended.