Mohura Pitha – Assamese Cuisine

Taking you to the North Eastern state of India - Assam. Assam is rich in culture and is quite popular for the Assam tea, Assam Silk and Assam Oil. Assamese cuisine has a lot of drying and fermentation in their process. Usage of spices are not much here but use of Fish and vegetables are used a lot with the center dish – rice. Coming in today’s recipe, it is a delicious sweet called Pitha. Pitha is a rice cake made on the special occasion like Bihu. For this state, my search ended quickly when I saw this recipe in Gayathri’s blog and did it. I got this from here and loved it..

Ingredients

Rice Flour - 1 1/4 cup
Warm Water - 3/4 cup (add a table spoon at a time)
Salt - A pinch
Cardamom Powder - 1/4 tea spoon
Coconut - 1/2 cup (grated)
Sugar - 1/4 cup (adjust to taste)

Method

Mix together coconut, sugar and cardamom powder and set this aside. This is the filling
Knead together rice flour, salt and warm water until you get a soft and pilable dough. Add a table spoon of water at a time
Make 12 portions of the dough
To each dough, make a ball, then press between the palms and make a small disc
Make these discs into a small bowl (like how you do for kozhukkattai)

Keep about 3/4 tea spoon of filling inside
Seal the edges and make a semi circle and then shape it to a spindle
Heat water in a pan and bring it to a boil
When the water is boiling, add the pitha slowly and cool for 10 minutes
After 10 minutes, remove the pithas from water with the help of a slotted ladle and place it on a perforated plate.
Serve warm

Points to note

Touch little rice flour to help make the bowl or the dough may stick
I used a pan and boiled the pithas in 2 batches
Keeping the cooked pithas on a perforated plate will help remove the excess moisture
I removed the pithas with a slotted silicon ladle as that would be gentle on the pithas instead of a steel one.

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