Adhirasam – How to make Athirasam

Yayyyyy!! Finally made it! Yes!! Adhirasam was a long time due post. I tried making it for last Diwali and it was a super flop 🙁 Did not dare to try it again until this year’s Diwali. It was a flop again!! Lazy me, I tried making it with store bought rice flour. Though I got the jaggery syrup consistency right both the times, it was a super flop!! Finally I made it with homemade rice flour and it was a super hit!! In my opinion, traditional recipes should be made the traditional way – No shorcuts!! 🙂 So pls don’t get disappointed if it doesnt work. Just try again!! Now I can tell all the Do’s & Dont’s to make Adhirasam successfully..

I gained courage to make it as a video recipe too.. Here is the video..

Now to the recipe…

[Preparation Time-10 mins : Cooking Time- 20 mins]

Adhirasam Ingredients:

• Raw Rice – 1 cup
• Jaggery (crushed) – 3/4 th cup
• Water – upto immersing level
• Cardamom powder – a pinch
• Ginger powder – a pinch
• Ghee – 1 tsp
• Oil – to fry

Method:

• Wash and soak raw rice for 2 hours. Drain the water and spread it on a clean cotton cloth. Let it dry for 30 mins. There should be a little moisture in the rice. If u touch with your palm, a few rice grains should stick to your hand. Transfer it to a mixer and grind it into a slightly course flour. It should neither be very course nor very fine. To this add ginger powder and cardamom powder. Keep it covered until use.

• Take the jaggery and crush it. Paagu vellam works best for making Adhirasam. Add water upto imersing level.

• Start heating it. Once the jaggery dissolves, strain it to remove impurities. Now start heating the syrup again in low-medium flame.

• Keep a bowl with water ready to check consistency. Pour a drop of the syrup in water to check consistency. First it will get dissolved, 2nd stage it will not get dissolved but u may not be able to make a soft ball out of it. Next stage is u can make a soft ball with it. This is the right consistency. Check video.. Add the jaggery syrup to the rice flour littly by little and mix. All this must be done quickly. The dough will be slightly loose. This is how it is meant to be. Keep it in an air-tight container. Top with a tsp of ghee and let it rest for a day.

• The next day, it will become solid. See the picture and video. Make equal sized balls and keep it ready. Grease a zip-lock cover or banana leaf with ghee and flatten the ball with your hands in a circular motion. It should be slightly thick.

• Meanwhile heat a pan with oil. The oil should be hot, though not fuming hot. Drop the Adhirasam in the oil. It will puff up and float. Flip and cook on both the sides until golden brown. Adhirasams get cooked very quickly. Use another ladle to press the adhirasam to remove excess oil. Repeat for the rest of the dough.

Thats it!! Yummy, soft Adhirasam ready!!

Enjoy !!

Tips:

1. Rice flour is the first important key to making Adhirasam. U can grind the rice flour at home or get the job done from a rice mill, if u have access to one. The rice flour should be slightly wet, in the sense there should be moisture in it. So once u r done with the rice flour make athirasams right away.
2. Next is the jaggery. Paagu vellam is the best ( the big mandai vellam). Your athirasam’s colour depends upon the jaggery u use.
3. Next comes the jaggery syrup. Pls follow the steps as mentioned above. Refer video for more understanding. Keep the flame in low so that the syrup does not pass on to the next stage.
4. Once the syrup is right add it immediately to the rice flour and mix. U can transfer the flour to the syrup too. Just in case if u are unable to make a loose dough consistency, keep the flour + jaggery mixture in low flame for a FEW SECONDS ONLY to get the right consistency. This way the jaggery syrup will melt a bit and help in getting the right consistency.
5. Fry the athirasam in low-medium flame. It will easily get browned outside and uncooked inside. Also the athirasams will not take long to get cooked, so do not over fry. It will become hard and chewy.
6. If at all u have over fried the athirasams and it gets hard, steam it in a idli pot for a few mins. It will become super soft.
7. The athirasam dough will stay good in room temperature for a week to 10 days.
8. If the dough is sticky(the next day) u can add little maida or wheat flour to get the right consistency. If its hard(the next day) u can add little milk to get it right.
9. With the above measurements, I got 14 Adhirsams. 🙂