An authentic recipe of Odisha, India - with coconut flavor

This Rice Pancake is everyone's favorite in my family - it's very simple to prepare and we even have a festival for this - Chitou Amabasya - the new moon night that comes in the Shravan month - that falls somewhere around end of July or start of August. On that day, it's fed to snails as an offering and put inside the water well. And interestingly, after you eat this, you should not go out - so it's served mostly in dinner or after you come home and do not have any plan to go out.

You just need rice and coconut to prepare the batter - soak the rice for 5-6 hours, and grate the coconut, grind the rice with coconut, add salt as per taste and the batter is ready. Take equal amount of rice and coconut to make the batter smooth and the tasty pancake. To make it super soft, leave it 2-3 hours and mix it one more time. Sometimes we add the rice water that is extracted when we cook the rice ( sundried rice) but that is not must to have. The main technique is to have the batter not very thin or thick - something you will only learn from experience.

You will need a thick cloth and a bowl of water - put the cloth in that. Now heat the pan in medium or high flame, put a bit of oil or ghee, once that is hot, put a ladle of batter in the pan and then cover it with a bowl. We have a bowl that is made of mud and is 30 years old - Mom has repaired the tip with white cement so that she can hold it. If you get this somewhere well and good, but any bowl that would cover the batter will also do. Now squeeze the cloth and put around the bowl. If your batter is very thin, then make sure, the cloth is less wet and vice-versa. Now leave it for 2-3 minutes, and then remove the bowl and thread and take out the pancake by spatula. We add a bit of sugar on it so that it melts in the heat making it super tasty. Some people eat with hot milk and sugar - especially useful, if for some reason, its not very soft - soak in hot milk and it will be soft.

Still wondering why you should not go out after eating this ? Because its cooked only on one side :) - some tradition that are followed since ancient times. And Mom prepares it best - she has that magic hand.

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