This is the recipe which i learnt from my Mother In Law.. You have to prepare Athirasam dough at least a day in advance. The dough can stay up to two days even if it is left outside. So take your own time and enjoy athirasam when ever needed. The recipe follows..
Yields : Around 12 Athirasam
Ingredients:
Raw Rice - 1.5 cups (Pacharisi)
Jaggery - 1 cup (Vellam)
Cardamom - 4 (Elakkai)
Sesame Seeds - 1 tsp (Ellu)
Oil - for frying
Procedure:
- Wash and soak raw rice for an hour. Drain excess water and hang it in a Muslin cloth for an hour. This is done to absorb excess water from rice. Grind it to a powder along with cardamom. You can use even Mixer-Grinder to grind the rice. Sieve the flour well. Your rice flour for making athirasam is ready.
- Take s sauce pan. Add jaggery and enough water just to soak jaggery to it. Heat it till jaggery melts and after that filter it. This will help to remove impurities from jaggery. Heat it again in medium flame till it reaches soft ball consistency. Soft ball consistency is nothing but, when you drop little jaggery extract to a bowl of water, it shouldn't disperse. Instead you should be able to form a loose ball out of it with your fingers. You can check for the consistency every now and then. Switch off the flame after jaggery has reached required consistency.
- Take a bowl. Add prepared rice flour and sesame seeds to it. Now add jaggery extract in small instances and start mixing with the flour. Your athirasam dough will be wet only. When we take it out to prepare athirasam the next day, the dough would be perfect. It would have absorbed all the water. Now add little oil to the top of the dough and cover it with a cling wrap and keep it in an air tight box.
- After 24 hours, take a small lemon size ball and press it in an greased plastic sheets. Put a hole in the center of athirasam. Always press the dough thick.
- Heat oil in a pan. When it is hot, slowly transfer it to the hot oil. Take it out after it has been cooked on both sides. Athirasam will always absorb lot of oil. So drain well excess oil and enjoy your athirasam!!!