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Cereals and bread from India

Anarsa / anarase (soaked-rice jaggery sweet)अनरसा

Anarsa is a fried festival sweet of rice flour and jaggery, coated with poppy seeds. The rice is soaked for about three days with the water changed daily, dried, ground and mixed with jaggery into a dough that rests for a day or two before frying. Whether it is truly fermented is unclear, and no microbial study of anarsa was found.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Anarsa / anarase itself.

DocumentedCereals and bread4.2 days – 5.3 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceA home recipe from a Maharashtrian recipe site, for 500 g of rice; no tested or standard recipe was found.
Rice (Surti kolam)500 g[madhura]
Jaggery250 g[madhura]
Poppy seedsPressed onto one side of each disc[madhura][ojha2022]
WaterFor soaking, and to knead a stiff dough[madhura]
Oil or ghee, for fryingThe recipe site fries in oil; the Chhath ladoo recipe fries in ghee[madhura][s2]

Total time across the recorded steps: 4.2 days – 5.3 days

Start
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Close-up: water moving into a grain

What changes: Rice soaks for three days in water that is changed every day

Step 1 of 4
Soak the rice, changing the water every day
Time
3 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: soft soaked rice.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Anarsa is a fried festival sweet of rice flour and jaggery, coated with poppy seeds. The rice is soaked for about three days with the water changed daily, dried, ground and mixed with jaggery into a dough that rests for a day or two before frying. Whether it is truly fermented is unclear, and no microbial study of anarsa was found. Made in 4 steps over 4.2 days – 5.3 days. The longest step, soak the rice, changing the water every day, takes 3 days (Madhura's Recipe).

Key numbers
Main step3 daysReported[madhura][s2]Soak the rice, changing the water every day

What makes this one different

Anarsa's only possible fermentation happens while the rice soaks and the dough rests. Sweets such as jalebi and sel roti, by contrast, are made from a batter that is deliberately left to ferment.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Banana anarsaRice flour, jaggery and banana kneaded to a dough rested about 8 hours and cooked in an air fryer.
  • Anarsa ladoo (Chhath)Rolled into balls.

Safety

No safety limits specific to anarsa were found. Discard anarsa that darkens to black or grows mould in storage.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Anarsa is made for Diwali in Maharashtra and for Chhath in Bihar, and Christians in parts of India make it at Christmas.

  1. [ojha2022] Ojha K., Singh V. 2022, Development and quality evaluation of a micronutrient rich traditional Indian product by utilization of locally available food resources, SALT Journal of Scientific Research in Healthcarepaper
  2. [madhura] Madhura's Recipe, Diwali special traditional anarse (recipe site; low weight)web
  3. [epp2016] Epp M. 2016, Peppernuts and anarsa, Anabaptist Witness (abstract; anarsa at Christmas among Christians in India)other
  4. [s2] Outlook Traveller, Anarsa ladoo recipe for Chhath puja (recipe site)web