Celebrating Holi with Fermented Rice Gulab Jamuns from Chhattisgarh
Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand celebrate Holi with sweets made with humble pantry staples of rice, watery milk and jaggery. In a land that worships milk and abundance, dudhauri and dehror are modest sweets that emerged from deprivation, relying on thrift rather than opulence, carrying within them the memory of households that learned to make sweetness from very little. Anushka explores the origin story of these two sweets.
Dehrori is etymologically derived from the word dehri, which translates to threshold, associated with worshipping deities at the threshold of the home. Dehrori, a cousin of dudhauri, is best known as the rice gulab jamun from Chhattisgarh.
The process for making it begins with a rice flour batter made with water, semolina, yogurt and a whiff of ghee, which, once leavened for a couple of hours, turns light and fluffy. Little spoonfuls of this batter are deep-fried in oil, then soaked in a jaggery syrup where they puff up and float delicately on the surface. Fermenting this batter overnight brings a slight tang, beautifully complementing the sweetness of the jaggery.
My roommate from Korba tells me that dehrori sets the mood for Holi in her family. Although her mother, Sapna Gupta, now uses sugar syrup, she has the original recipe (with jaggery) written down.
Holi heralds the beginning of summer; a change in the seasons. It is is celebrated with the sharp, lively flavour of tartness to mirror the shift in air and appetite — in this case, from the fermented batter.
SAPNA GUPTA’S RECIPE FOR DEHRORI
Ingredients
250g arwa rice
250g plain yoghurt
50g semolina
1 tsp ghee (optional)
500g jaggery
3-5 cardamom pods
Method
Grind the rice coarsely until the particles resemble semolina.
To the ground rice, add in yoghurt, ghee and some water to form a thick batter.
Leave to ferment for a couple of hours (ideally overnight) until the batter turns light and fluffy.
Fry spoonfuls of the batter in oil, over a medium flame, until crisp and golden.
In a separate kadhai, add water and chunks of jaggery, bring to a boil and allow to thicken.
Add 3-5 cardamom pods, roughly crushed, or use cardamom powder to your taste. Turn the flame off when the syrup reaches one-string consistency.
Now, soak the balls in hot jaggery syrup until they soften, puff up and rise to the surface.
They are ready to serve immediately.
From contributing to her school magazine to writing ad copy for start-ups such as Woman Ambassadors in Chicago, Anushka has always been writing. Now twenty-two and fresh from an internship at Siyahi, a prominent literary agency, she is now working at her family's hospitality venture, Mistwood Holidays and Resorts.
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