How to prepare Ariselu or Athirasalu?

Ariselu is a popular sweet, usually prepared on Makar Sankranti.

Arisa or Arisalu is a Dravidian Telugu word, which means rice.It is also called kajaya in Kannada. A similar sweet in Tamil Nadu called adhirasam is prepared for pujas. They are made with Rice flour and Jaggery syrup.

Anyone can make this Ariselu very easily without any experience

Ingredients:

• 1 kg Rice
• 3/4 kg Jaggery (grated)
• 2 tbsp of Sesame Seeds
• 1 tbsp of Poppy Seeds or Gasa gasa
• Oil to fry

Preperation of Rice flour:

• Wash the rice and soak it for about 6 hours.
• Drain the water completely.
• Spread them on a cloth for a few minutes to make sure that the rice is dry.
• Grind this to fine powder using your mixie or give to mill. The rice flour should have that texture of soft and wet feeling .
• Sieve the rice powder if required and set aside.

Preperation of Pakam:

• Shred the jaggery and put it in a pan.
• Add water to the jaggery and dissolve it by boiling. 
• When jaggery melts remove from heat and strain to remove if any dirt in the jaggery.
• Make thick syrup of this mixture on low flame.
• To check syrup, when you take a bit and put it in water, you should be able to make a ball of it. Now the pakkam is ready.

Directions to make Ariselu 0r Athirasalu:

• Add rice flour to the syrup slowly and stir well.
• Remove from fire, and add poppy seeds, sesame seeds and cardamom. Mix well.
• Make sure that no lumps are formed to get a soft dough like a chapathi dough.
• When the mixed flour becomes slightly cool make big lime size balls of it.
• Now heat oil in a deep frying pan.
• Grease a plastic sheet and put one dough ball on it and press in to a small circle.
• Sprinkle some sesame seeds on it and drop carefully in to hot oil.
• Turn to the other side and cook till golden brown in colour. 
• Then remove and place this Arise in between two flat laddles and press to remove extra oil.
• Repeat the procedure till the dough is over.
• Ariselu is ready to eat.