Enduri Pitha

It is wrapped in a turmeric leaf and steamed, and the leaf is the flavour.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (chhena).

Ingredients

• 12 fresh turmeric leaves
• 200 g rice flour
• 100 g black gram, soaked and ground
• 150 g coconut, grated, or 150 g chhena
• 150 g jaggery, grated
• 1 teaspoon black pepper, coarsely ground
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Method

1. IT IS WRAPPED IN A TURMERIC LEAF AND STEAMED, AND THE LEAF IS THE FLAVOUR. Its article names the ingredients in order and the leaves come first: turmeric leaves, black gram, rice flour, coconut or chhena, jaggery and black pepper. The leaf is not a wrapper of convenience like the banana leaf elsewhere -- fresh turmeric leaf is aromatic and slightly resinous, and steaming drives that straight into the cake. Its other name, haladi patra pitha, is the turmeric-leaf pitha. Wrapped in banana leaf instead you get a perfectly good steamed cake with none of the point of this one.
2. THE BATTER IS RICE FLOUR AND GROUND BLACK GRAM TOGETHER. Soak the urad dal four hours and grind it to a thick paste, then beat it into the rice flour with the salt and enough water to make a spreadable batter.
3. THE FILLING IS SEPARATE AND IT IS SWEET. Coconut or chhena with the jaggery and the black pepper, warmed in a pan for five minutes until the jaggery melts and binds it.
4. ITS ARTICLE ALLOWS COCONUT OR CHHENA AND THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. Coconut gives a chewy, fibrous filling; chhena gives a soft one that tastes of milk. Pick one and say which.
5. THE PEPPER IS COARSE AND THERE IS A LOT OF IT. A whole teaspoon against three hundred grams of sweet filling. Ground fine it disappears; cracked coarse you meet it.
6. THE LEAF IS WASHED AND USED RAW. No blanching. Spread two tablespoons of batter down the middle, a spoonful of filling on that, fold the leaf over and tuck the ends.
7. THEY ARE STEAMED, AND ITS ARTICLE SAYS IN WHAT. Large earthen pots. A steamer does the job: twenty to twenty-five minutes, until the batter has set firm through the leaf.
8. THE LEAF IS NOT EATEN. It is unwrapped at the table and the cake comes away from it. What it leaves behind is the smell.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under India · All recipes