Adhirasam - Traditional sweet for Diwali from South India

Soak raw rice in water for about 2-3 hours. After 2 hours, wash soaked rice once or twice. Drain all water and spread the wet rice on a white cotton cloth. Leave it to dry for 30-60 minutes. You will dry the rice indoors, not in the sun.

I left the rice to dry on white cotton cloth for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, if you touch the rice, they’ll be still moist. Transfer the rice to blender and blend it as fine as possible.

Sieve the rice powder using rava jalladi. Flour should be slightly coarse powder not like the store bought ones which are very fine. Keep the rice flour covered, we want the moisture in the flour to be intact.

The remaining rice flour in the sieve needs to be ground again in mixer. Then sieve it again. Repeat this process until the left over rice in sieve is about a few tsps. Basically you’ll have to use up all the rice by grinding it.

Keep the rice flour covered. We will now prepare the jaggery syrup. Add jaggery and water to a pan. Heat it on a medium flame.

Once all the jaggery melts filter to remove any impurities and pour back the filtered jaggery back to pan to heat. Once jaggery starts boiling reduce flame to low and continue to stir.

We have to get the jaggery syrup to soft ball consistency. that is, in a small bowl of water add few drops of jaggery, they will drop down without melting and if you try to gather the jaggery they will easily form a ball.

If the jaggery melts in water heat the jaggery for some more time until you get the soft ball consistency.

Now to the rice flour add sesame ot til seeds and mix well. Next pour the jaggery syrup little by little and mix well using a wooden spatula. Do not pour al the syrup at once, add few tablespoons at a time.

Once you get a soft sticky dough(that’s how it has to be) place it a air tight container and leave it at room temperature over night or minimum 3-4 hours. This is mandatory which makes adhirasam soft.

After adhirasam dough has rested, it’s ready to be fried. Heat oil in a deep pan. Use a zip lock bag or any polythene cover, grease it with ghee or oil

Make a small ball from dough and flatten it on polythene cover(don’t make it too thick or too thin). Gently remove from cover and transfer to hot oil.

Once oil is hot, reduce the temperature to medium.As soon as you drop the adhirasam in oil, they sink to the bottom and in few seconds once they get cooked on bottom side they come floating to surface. Now it’s ready to be flipped.

Fry on both sides until golden brown(few secs on each side). If you fry for too long the adhirasam’s will turn hard and cripsy.

Remove from oil and squeeze it using 2 slotted ladles. This step is also important as adhirasam sucks a lot of oil and you have to try to squeeze it out after it’s cooked. Transfer to absorbent kitchen paper. Repeat with rest of dough

The most delicious soft adhirasam is ready. Store in air tight container after they have cooled. Make these for diwali and enjoy your festival.