Chuda Ghasa

Ingredients:

½ kg beaten rice (chuda)
75 gms clarified butter/ ghee (ghia)
150 gms jaggery (guda)
1 teaspoon black pepper powder (golmaricha gunda)
½ shell coconut – scraped (nadia kora)
2 cardamom (aleicha)

Fruits / nuts for garnishing (khismis / seo/ kadali)

Method:

Grind the chuda coarsely in dry jar mixer. Take the ground chuda in a big bowl. Add ghee to it. Do not melt the ghee. Put the same in chuda and mix it by hand. You need to do it thoroughly so that the ghee melts in the body temperature of your hands and smoothens out the chuda. Add the jaggery powder (do not use jaggery in liquid form) to it and then mix. The body heat again will soften the chuda and jaggery too will get blended thoroughly. Best way is to take a small amount at a time and mix it by keeping the same in between both your palms. It takes a minimum of 20 minutes to get a perfect consistency. At this stage add the scraped coconut, black pepper powder and cardamom powder. Mix again for 10 minutes. At this point the moisture from the coconut would further soften the chuda, but it won’t soak it. Now add dry fruits like raisins and /or fruits like apples and banana (cut into small pieces). Your Chuda Ghasa is now ready. A great deal of physical exercise - wasn’t it ! But you are surely going to be compensated for the hard labour with the appreciative words of the people who get to taste it. This delicacy is offered as prasad (bhoga) during Ganesh Puja and Saraswati Puja in Orissa. This is also a special delicacy that is offered to lord Shiva during Shiva Ratri celebrations at the Sri Lokanath temple in Puri.