Rice flour Poda Pitha

Rice Flour Poda Pitha

Raja an Odia festival is to celebrate women and mother hood. It is a cultivators’ festival too. It is celebrated for three days. These days are called Pahili Raja ,Raja Shankranti And Sesha Raja . In this festival young girls bath with turmeric water, wear new clothes and apply alata (a typical bright red colour on feet) on their feet.

 It is believed that Prithivi Or Mother Earth gets her menstrual cycle. These three days, once in a year, it has to be celebrated by ladies. In earlier years, and even today in some parts of our country, girls are not supposed to cook or cut vegetables on these days. Male members of the family do the household chores. Ladies will have fun, rest and relax. 

Delicacies are must to have on these days. Poda Pitha is one among them. We odia people​ can't imagine our Raja without Poda Pitha. In this process I will share two different types of poda pitha. One is with Rice Flour and other is with Lentil ( urad dal ) and rice paste. This article will contain the recipe of Rice Flour Poda Pitha (Chaula Chuna Poda Pitha). Here is the recipe.

Rice flour - 2 cups 

Water - 6 cups

Jaggery - 11/2 cup

Salt to taste

Sanuf ( fennel seeds) - 11/2 tsp

Green cardamom powder- 1 tsp

Crushed black pepper - 1 tsp 

Ginger - 1 inch piece

Chopped cashew - 3 tbsp

Raisin -3 tbsp

Scraped coconut - 5 tbsp

Chopped coconut - 5 tbsp 

Banana leaf - 1

In a wide kadai add water and place it on flame. Now add salt and jaggery to it. Let the jaggery melt and mix properly.  

Then add all the flavourings and let it boil . Clean, peel and crush ginger and add to the boiling water. Now add raisins, cashew, chopped coconut and scared coconut to the boiling water.

Now add rice flour to the boiling water. Keep the flame high. Mix the flour properly without any lumps. Let it cook for some time. This mixture neither very watery nor very thick.

Heat a pressure cooker and add ghee to it. Spread the ghee all over the inner side of the cooker. Cut banana leaf and line on the cooker. Heat banana leaf for some seconds. So that it will be easy to line the leaf.

Now pour the above batter on the banana

 leaf. Close ​the lid without the whistle. Keep the cooker on slow flame for one hour and fifteen minutes. This pitha can be seen brown from sides and that is the sign of the cooked pitha.

Let the pitha cool down completely. Then bring out from cooker and peel the banana leaf. Keep out for fifteen more minutes.

This can be done in microwave oven too. Pour the prepared batter in the microwave bowl and keep in the microwave. Bake it in convection mode in 180 degree temperature for 30 mins. If not done bake it again for 10mins but checking from time to time as the Cooking time may differ from oven to oven. When done bring out and allow it to cool down completely

 Then cut the pitha in desired shape and serve.