Here’s another traditional sweet recipe – Ariselu. Made with rice flour and jaggery mainly. This requires a bit of attention and is worth all the effort honestly. This is usually made for special occasions to be shared with friends and family. Well made ariselu can last up to 6 months in an airtight container apparently – my mother said. They do not tend to last that long though 🙂 I am yet to encounter a person who does not love these.

There are two phases to this – one is to make chalimidi which is then flattened and deep fried. Chalimidi is eaten as is too and for the enthusiastic ones, this can be turned into ariselu. Onto the recipe:

Ingredients

• Rice – 500g
• Jaggery – 375 g
• Ghee – 3 tbsp
• Water – 3 tbsp
• Elaichi powder – from 4 pods
• Sesame seeds – 2 tbsp
• Oil – for deep frying

Recipe

• Soak the rice in water for about 16-24 hours, until it softens
• Drain the water from the rice and leave it in a sieve for about 1 hour
• Now make as fine a powder of it as possible. This is an important step. The rice may still be a little damp, but will turn into a fine powder with some effort. May require the powder to be sieved and then reground.
• In a vessel, add the grated jaggery and water and heat it up on medium heat. The jaggery mixture turns into a boiling mixture so use a larger vessel to do this. After about 7 minutes of this, drop a couple of drops into a tablespoon of water. If this can be formed into a ball and if dropped into the water again, sounds like a soft rock, you are done.
• Turn off the heat and add the rice flour, sesame seeds and elaichi powder at this stage.

• Now heat up oil in a kadhai.
• Pinch off about a lemon sized ball of the rice flour jaggery mix (chalimidi). To a plastic sheet/butter paper, apply some oil and flatten the ball to about 3-4 mm thickness.
• Once the oil is hot enough, drop the flattened disc into it. You can add about 2-3 at a time based on the kadhai size. Fry this to golden brown on one side and then flip it to cook it completely. Ensure that the heat is medium level, else the ariselu would burn immediately.
• Once fried, press each arise between two slotted spoons to squeeze out any oil from it. These do absorb oil while frying and require oil to be squeezed out later.
• Similarly, fry the rest as well.
• These can be stored in an airtight container for about 2 weeks at least.

Note: The rice flour should be really fine. Also use fresh jaggery, the end product looks golden brown and really appetizing. Older jaggery yields darker ariselu.

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