‘Pitha’ is one of the finger-licking popular snacks in Assam. It is available in different forms as savory, sweets, roasted, and even sometimes barbecued inside the stem piece of bamboo. Assamese ‘Pitha’ has such a delightful taste, which reflects the core traditional food culture of Assam. ‘Pitha’ is also an adorable food delicacy, which makes Assamese seasonal festivals like ‘Bihu’ more colourful. The variety of traditional Assamese ‘pitha’ is considered as a classic reflection of their cultural identity.
So, here we are representing some crazy delicacies of Assamese pitha for the crazy foodies.
On the Assamese occasion ‘Magh Bihu’, Sugna Pitha is an authentic platter in Assam. ‘Sugna’ stands for Bamboo tube in the Assamese language. On a holy night before Assamese festival ‘Bihu’, this delicious platter is prepared using soaked ‘Bora rice’. The fascinating recipe of Sugna Pitha includes several exclusive steps. First, the half-length of fresh bamboo tubes are filled with soaked ‘Bora rice’. And the rest half-length is filled with water. Cork made with Banana leaves are used to enclose the mouth of bamboo tubes. Then tubes are placed in an inclined pattern on two crossed bamboo. Now it’s time to burn the rice stuffed bamboo tubes for 40 minutes on the bed of straw. The most interesting fact about this delicacy is that the burnt tubes need to leave 8-10 hours before peeling the rice stuff. Liquid ‘Nolen gur’ and curd are popular choices with this authentic Assamese pitha.
It is a very popular Assamese platter, made with rice flour. A standard amount of water and rice flour is mixed in a frequent motion by hand to make this pitha delicacy. With a pinch of oil on the pan on low flame, the mixture becomes a shallow fried snack. Both faces of this pitha are fried lightly. Common savoury like aloo bhaji and chunks of sweetened jaggery accompanies this pitha.
If you taste this traditional Assamese platter, you will feel a sheer love to the Assamese food culture. In their seasonal festival, ‘Magh Bihu’, Sutuli Pitha is a traditional dish, prepared with the mashed stuffing of black sesame seeds and fresh jaggery. The cute parcels made with rice flour dough used as the wrapping to make this delightful platter. You will be amazed to see the golden fried cocoon along with drizzling ‘nolen gur’.
1 cup rice flour, 3 cups grated version of coconut and half spoonful cardamom powder is required to prepare these sweetened Assamese snacks. The easy recipe of this platter attracts your mind to make it. You just need to make a soft kneaded dough with mixing water with refined rice flour. Cut the dough into tiny pieces and stuff the mixture of grated coconut, sugar and cardamom powder into the middle of the shapes. Now, it’s time to tap the shapes spinning your hand and closing its edges. Finally, steam those for 10 min and serve those warm.
On the colourful occasion of Bihu, jaggery is one of the major ingredients to prepare traditional sweetened Assamese platters. Ghila pitha is a popular sweetened snack prepared with refined flour of rice, white shallow roasted sesame seeds and ‘Nolen gur’. Few steps need to be followed to prepare this Tikki style Assamese pitha. First leave the jaggery to dissolve in water and after a few moments, knead the rice flour with the jaggery water and sesame seed to make a soft dough. Now, it’s time to make round shaped tikki style patties from the soft dough. Finally, you just need to shallow fry the tiny flat-shaped pitha with a pinch of oil till those turn into golden brown. Now, your ‘Bihu’ special Assamese platter is ready to serve with a crunchy nutty texture.
Rice flour is a major ingredient of this mouth-watering Assamese pitha. Mixing the proportional amount of water with rice flour, soft dough is made. From this rice flour dough, they make multiple tiny shapes. Then jaggery and banana are mashed as a flavoured filling of the shapes. And finally, the shapes are filled with sweetened mashed stuff and are left to be steamed wrapping with banana leaves. It is very healthy as this platter does not require oil.
It is one of the unique platters, prepared by Assamese during their seasonal occasions. The name of this pitha delicacy stands for an exclusive recipe, which does not need to boil or fry. This specific recipe is followed by mixing rice flour, jaggery and milk. During religious festivals such as Aai Hobah, Janmashtami and Lakshmi puja, Kecha pitha is very popular in Assamese society.
All these platters bear the core essence of North-East Indian food culture. Not only domestic foodies but also foreigner foodies fall in love with this sheer traditional sweetened food delicacies.
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