Arisa Pitha

An Oriya sweet, which has been Deb's favorite since childhood. In Orissa it is mostly bought from sweet shops these days because of all the handwork that goes into making it. I have tried making it at home as we don't have any shop that sells this sweet. And It has taken me QUITE a few attempts to get decent tasting Arisa Pitha :)

You need:

Rice - 2 cups

Jaggery - 1 cups

Cardamom - 4-5 (fine powder)

Pepper - 1/4 teaspoon

Sesame Seeds - 1/2 cup approx

Ghee - 2 Tbsp

Oil - 1 cup for dough and oil to deep fry pitha

1) Wash the rice thoroughly and soak overnight. Drain water completely, and let it dry a little so that all the water is removed.

2) Now make fine powder of the rice. Sieve the rice powder and if desire grind once again and make a very fine powder.

3) Now in a separate pan add 1/4 cup of water and bring the jaggery to a boil and keep stirring till you get a thick syrup. To check the consistency of the syrup, take 1/2 cup of cold water and pour 3-4 drops of syrup. If it doesn't dissolve and forms a gooey lump or ball, its ready.

4) Remove from the heat and add the ghee. Once dissolved add the rice flour to the syrup slowly and mix well. Make sure that there no lumps. If the dough is too gooey, put it on heat again and stir. You need a dough thats a little softer than chapati dough but not too soft to break/stick when you want to fry the pitha.

5) Remove from the heat and add oil mix well to male a soft dough like a soft chapathi dough.

6) Cover and soak the dough with oil. Leave aside for 30 min.

7) When ready to fry, take all the excess oil out of the dough and knead a little.

8) Make small balls out of this dough and out it on a plastic sheet. Sprinkle sesame seeds and roll the ball on it so that it sticks on the dough. Then press the dough ball so that it look like a disc. Press the edges to make it thinner than the center. You will get crispier sides and softer sweeter center.

9) Now heat oil in a deep frying pan and fry the pitha on low flame till golden/caramel brown. Place them in a tissue to remove the excess oil.

10) After they cool store in an air tight container. Arisa pitha will stay good upto a month but in most cases exhaust much before that! :)

*I have used ready made rice flour from the store, but didn't get great result :(