Ariselu or athirasalu are the most important festive sweet of sankranti or Pongal. Pongal or Makara Sankranthi is harvest festival. We get newly pounded rice during this season.
Preparing them means getting into the festive vibe. If we cannot make them at least we buy them from nearby stores. This is the season we get fresh rice grains from the harvest, the first sweet people make with them is ariselu and sweet pongal or chakkara pongali as we call it. Sankranthi is incomplete without ariselu and sweet Pongal. Every household in Telugu states they are must haves.
As I started learning new recipes I was a bit scary about trying ariselu as they need real expertise and some help too. We need to follow certain tips and follow certain rules while making them. I am skeptical about this new trendy instant way of making them. To attain proper texture and taste we need to make them the way they have to be, otherwise get them from sweet shop.
Preparing rice flour for Ariselu:
As I mentioned above, there are certain important points to keep in mind while making them. Soak rice for at least 10 to 12 hours, it may vary depending on the quantity.
Drain excess water and dry it on a cloth for half an hour, immediately grind it to a fine powder. Rice should be wet only.
Normally, in India we have separate flour mills for grinding wet rice. No need to worry about it, we can make flour with wet rice too. We can get it done in our regular mixer grinder available at our homes too. If we are making less quantity, we can grind it using our blender jar. But we need to sieve till we get smooth flour.
This rice flour will have moisture in it. We need to keep it tightly pressed so that the moisture can be protected. We have to make the use of it immediately, once the flour dried out making ariselu would become tricky.
Sweet dough or chalividi for ariselu:
For making them we have to prepare a sweet dough with the flour or chalividi as we call it. The most important task of making them depends on the dough only.
If the dough comes out perfectly then the ariselu too turn out super tasty and perfect. Melt jaggery till we reach right consistency, add sesame seeds and rice flour to it.
Rice flour may require more or less depending on the jaggery syrup and dough consistency. So we always get the rice flour more than what we need. The left over rice flour can refrigerated.
We have to have presser or ariselu maker. Two small flat wooden plates, one with a handle and the other one is flat. We need to place the flat one in a plate and press arise with handle one. So that excess oil or ghee can be drained completely.
Of course, without it also we can make them, as I did. So I used steel container and a small vessel. I kept steel container in the bottom and pressed arise with another vessel. I kept this entire thing in a wide vessel, so that the entire excess oil would drain into it.
Key Ingredients in Ariselu:
Rice: Best use regular rice or we can use thick rice too. Soak it for at least 10 to 12 hours.
Jaggery: Use as sweetener, take a little lesser portion only.
Sesame Seeds: Adding them is purely optional, some do not add them at all. but they are good in this season.
Ghee: Frying ariselu in ghee is the traditional way of making them. If you do not like you can always use oil.
Follow the recipe given below for tasty and yummy ariselu.
Ariselu | How to make Ariselu | (Sankranthi special Recipe)
Ingredients
- 2 Cups Rice
- 1 & 1/2 Cup Jaggery
- 2 tbsp Sesame Seeds
- Oil or ghee for Frying
Instructions
Procedure for Chalividi/Sweet Dough:
- Wash and Soak rice for 10 to 12 hours.
- After 10 hours, drain out excess water and spread rice on a plain cloth.
- Let it dry this for half an hour.
- Add it in a blender jar and grind it to make a fine powder.
- Sieve it and grind the residue and keep doing this till the entire rice is done.
- Keep this flour tightly in a bowl, by pressing with our hand.
- This would keep the moisture intact.
- Heat a thick bottomed vessel, add chopped jaggery.
- Cook till the jaggery melts completely.
- Keep checking the consistency. The jaggery should form into a soft ball once we drop in cold water.
- If it turns out to a smooth and soft ball, then the jaggery syrup reached right consistency.
- Switch off the flame and keep it aside.
- Add a spoonful of ghee and sesame seeds and mix them swiftly.
- Keep adding rice flour to this syrup till we get a pliable dough.
- Add rice flour till the jaggery syrup turns into a dough consistency.
- If we are able to make a ball easily and if it is not sticking to our hands, means the rice flour is enough.
- And the dough is in right consistency.
- Mix it well with a wooden ladle, no traces of dry flour should be left without mixing in it.
Procedure for ariselu:
- Heat oil or ghee in a kadai, these are made in ghee only.
- Make small balls of the dough.
- Grease your hand and fingers with ghee, pat a dough ball and make small patti out of it, as we do for aloo tikki.
- But the patti should be thin than aloo tikki. The thickness of the patti should not be more than 5mm or .5CM
- Slowly drop this patti in hot ghee. Let it cook in the low flame.
- This would puff up like puri, slowly flip it to cook the other side also.
- Cook till both sides turn into golden brown.
- Slowly take it out from the ghee using a slotted ladle.
- Immediately, press it using ariselu maker or the way I did.
- Place a small container in reverse, put the arise on it. Press it with another container.
- We have to do the above mentioned process in another wide plate, so that the excess ghee drains and collect in it.