Ariselu

Ariselu: Ariselu or Arisa is a South Indian sweet dish from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha. Ariselu is a Telugu word which means rice. It is a traditional dish and is prepared during festivals like Sankranti. It is made from rice flour, ghee and jiggery or granulated sugar and decorated with gingelly or sesame seeds.

Ingredients (serves 8-10):

• 1 kg Rice
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds
• 3/4 kg Jaggery
• Water, as required
• Oil, for deep frying

Method:

• Wash the rice and soak it for around six hours.
• Drain the water from the rice.
• Place the rice a cloth, in shade, for drying.
• Grind the rice well in a mixier to make it into a fine powder.
• Sieve the rice powder to remove any coarse rice chunks.
• Shred the jaggery in a pan.
• Add some water to the jiggery.
• Dissolve the jaggery by boiling on low heat.
• Cook the syrup on low flame, till it forms a ball when dropped into a bowl of cold water.
• Gradually add the ground rice to the jiggery syrup and keep stirring continuously.
• Ensure that there are no lumps in the mixture.
• Remove the pan from the stove.
• Keep mixing the rice flour-jaggery syrup mixture till it forms a homogenous mixture.
• Make small balls, size of a table tennis ball, out of the rice flour mixture.
• Press all the balls on a plastic sheet in order to shape them like small round pan cakes.
• Sprinkle and press some sesame seeds on the uncooked ariselu (flattened rice flour mixture from the previous step)
• Heat the oil in deep bottomed pan, on medium heat, to 180°C.
• Change the heat to low.
• Deep fry all the ariselu on very low flame till they turn dark brown in colour.
• Place the cooked ariselu between to flat ladles and press out all the oil completely.

Note: You have to remove all the excess oil, as much as possible by pressing them between the ladles or the end product will seem very oily.

• Cool the ariselu to room temperature.
• Serve the ariselu with a dollop of cooked (skinned green grams) moong dal.
• The ariselus will last for about two weeks, when stored in an airtight container.

If you have any queries regarding the Ariselu recipe, please leave a comment.