A Seaside Break and a Stack of Sweets

Spring has Sprung! Finally, winter seems to have left for good, and so with the kids off on their Spring Break, we took to the beach for some R&R with our crazy zingbang extended family. Here are some scenes from surfside and the rented beach house.

Morning Ablution

The kitchen was swarming with my uber-talented aunts, so I stayed far away, and the only offering I made was this measly fruit salad. Biut I did get points for cutting the strawberries into pretty shapes!

Under Construction =)A cuppa tea by the sea (inspired by Archana's Cup of Chai)Gone Fishin'

The Rental. No Jersey Shore "Situations" here....

I came home to realize I was hours away from the deadline for the Indian Cooking Challenge - hosted by Srivalli. This month's challenge was the traditional Andhra Pradesh sweet snack called Ariselu or Aathirasallu, usually prepared for weddings or religious festivals.

These ICC challenges are proving quite interesting to me, because I'm pretty sure 90% of the items are going to be things I have never tasted before. So I may need to hire some ICC pros to taste test my renditions of them, just to see if I'm even on the right page!

Ariselu is a thin fried bread made out of rice flour and jaggery. Jaggery is unrefined sugar commonly used in Asia and Africa, and much lauded for its health benefits over refined, processed white sugar. I would define jaggery as lumpy, brown sugar before it got powdered and made into the neatly labelled bags we see in the grocery store.

I was a little intimidated with its use because I thought it would be way too sweet, but surprisingly it was not. The little breads just had a tinge of sweetness to them and the refreshing crunch of coconut comes through too.

Thank you to Srivalli for hosting ICC and for introducing newbies like me to these little Indian treats!

Cook's note: The only change I made to the recipe was to toast the rice flour a little, because I don't like the raw taste of white rice flour.

Recipe (from Srivalli's Cooking For All Seasons)

Toasted Rice Flour - 1 glass (standard measurement)
Jaggery - 1/2 glass
Coconut grated - 2 tsp
Cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp
Water - 1/2 glass
Sesame seeds - 1 tbsp

Oil for deep frying.

Method to prepare:

1. Cook jaggery and water on high. Then add the cardamom powder. Once it starts boiling, add the grated coconut. You will see lot of bubbles coming out.
2. At this stage, add the rice flour slowly and stir it together well.
The beauty of this dough is, you can store and use it whenever you want. If it becomes too hard, just add about 2 tsp of water along with 2 tsp of sugar. Get it to boil, while you keep stirring it. The mixture should become soft again. When you handle it, it should come together as a soft dough. Divide it to equal balls.
3. Heat a pan with oil to deep fry the arisellu. In a greased plastic sheet, pat them down to equal sized discs. Press down the sesame seeds over the top. Once the oil is hot, gently drop these into them. Fry on both sides. Since the sesame seeds are just pressed over the top, they will get into the oil. If you want to avoid this, try adding to the dough.
4. Once they are golden brown, remove and drain them on a kitchen towel.They will be soft when you remove them, will become crunchy once they are cooled.
Makes about 8.