Enduri Pitha (A type of Rice-flour & Cheese Cake)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of rice (chaula)
• 1 cup black gram (biri)
• 1 cup grated coconut (nadia kora)
• 100 gm cottage cheese (chhena)
• 150 gm jaggery (guda)
• 3 cardamoms (gujurati / aleicha)
• 6 peppercorns (golmaricha)
• Some green turmeric leaves (haladi patra)
• Salt to taste (luna)

Preparation:

1. Soak rice and black gram for 4 hours (use only the skinless black gram for the purpose).
2. Wash the same thoroughly and then grind into thick batter (It need not be a very fine paste).
3. Grind leaving a little coarseness in the rice, whip well and leave the batter for fermenting for 8 hours.
4. Add salt and mix properly.
5. Heat the frying pan on medium flame and put the grated coconut, cottage cheese and jaggery and stir and fry till it becomes a little dry.
6. Add powdered cardamom and black pepper, mix well and keep aside the prepared stuffing.
7. Take one whole green turmeric leaf (If the leaf is of bigger size you may cut it) and put a little batter on the leaf and flatten the same.
8. Then put the required quantity of stuffing on the batter and fold the turmeric leaf lengthwise in such a way that the stuffing gets sandwiched in between two layers of batter.
9. Tie a thread around the folded leaf to keep it secured.
10. Now steam it to follow an age-old Oriya method take a wide mouthed pot, fill it up to half with water.
11. Then tie a muslin cloth tightly around its mouth, carefully place the tied leaf containing stuffed batter on the cloth.
12. Cover it with a concave lid, steam it till done (this way go on steaming pithas one after another).
13. The delicate aroma of turmeric leaf is the special feature of the pitha.
14. Serve the famous Enduri Pitha.
    
    Note: But in case of non-availability of green turmeric leaf, you could alternatively use plantain leaf. But in that case the aroma of turmeric leaf would be missing.

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