Daal Pitha
Cuisine: Jharkhandi
Ingredients
- 8 1 cup Raw Rice flour
- 8 1 & ½ cup Water
- 8 Salt to taste
- For the Stuffing
- 8 1 cup Chana daal (soaked in water for 3 hrs)
- 8 2 tsp Cumin seeds
- 8 3 – 4 cloves Garlic
- 8 3 long Green Chilli
- 8 Salt – as per taste
- 8 Oil – as required for greasing hands and steaming vessel + 1 tbsp for seasoning
Method
For the Outer Rice layer
- Heat a pan with water with salt added. When the water starts boiling, simmer and add rice flour and quickly stir everything together. Even if there are lumps, it’s alright.
- Cook till everything blends together and keep it covered.
- When it cools down, take it and with your hands knead it to a soft dough. Always keep it covered with a muslin cloth so that the dough doesn’t get dried up.
- For the Chana Dal stuffing
- Wash and soak the chana dal in water for atleast 3 -4 hrs. Once it is soaked well. drain the water and take it in a mixer.
- Add chopped green chilies, garlic, salt and cumin seeds. Grind it to a paste, making sure the dal is not complete a paste, you can let it be a bit coarse.
- Heat a pan with a tsp oil, saute the ground dal mix and cook it for couple minutes, making sure the stuffing is not burnt but cooked well. The paste should still be moist.
- To make the Pithas
- Divide the dough into equal balls, with greased hands, Flatten the balls, with sides thin and centre thicker, place the dal mixture and enclose it completely.
- Fold it to make gujiya/kajjikaya like shape. Work the seam with oiled hands so as to get smooth edges. Or you can make it as Kozhukattai
- Steam these pithas in a greased steamer till the daal filling gets cooked and knife comes out clean.
- Take out the pithas from the steamer and let cool.
- These can be served as such once it is cooled to handle. Or you can cut through them and serve as bite size pieces.
