Kakara Pitha

Ingredients:

For dough (khali):
4-cups wheat flour (ata)
2-cups sugar (chini)
½ litre refined oil (rifaain tela)

For stuffing:
Grated coconut-1 cup (nadia kora)
½ - cup sugar (chini)
1 teaspoon aniseed (pana-madhuri)
1 teaspoon black pepper (gol maricha)
4 cloves small cardamom (chhota aleicha)

Method:

For Dough:
Add ½ cup water to ½ table-spoon wheat flour to make a paste. Heat 5 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar in a frying pan. Add the paste to the pan when the sugar solution becomes saturated and stir well. Make sure that no lump is formed while stirring. Leave the pan on the flame for 2 minutes for the mixture to boil. Now add rest of the flour to the mixture and lower the flame. Stir it properly. Now transfer the mixture from pan to a flat plate. Knead to make a smooth dough by adding 1 tablespoon of refined oil. The refined oil prevents formation of lumps.

For Stuffing:
Roast aniseed, black pepper and cardamom and then powder them. Fry grated coconut and sugar in a frying pan. Do not add oil. Add the powdered ingredients to it and stir. The stuffing is ready.

Make small balls of the dough. Flatten each ball and put the stuffing on it and again form a ball so that the stuffing remains at the center. Now flatten the balls to give it the shape of a kachori. Heat the oil in the pan and fry the flattened balls till it becomes golden brown. Your kakara pitha is ready to serve.

Variation:
A small variation in the above recipe may be made to prepare modak (also known as manda pitha in certain areas of Orissa). The difference lies only in the final shape of the pitha. At the end of the procedure, instead of flattening the balls to give them the shape of kachori, leave them in the shape of round shaped balls and fry as stated. Your modak / manda is ready.