Dudhauri: The Milk and Rice Sweet from Bihar

Bihar and Jharkhand celebrate Holi with sweets made with humble pantry staples of rice, watery milk and jaggery. Anushka explores the humble dudhauri and dehrori, two sweets made using everyday kitchen staples.

From barfis in the north to payasam in the south, ghevar in the west to rosogollas in the east, Indian desserts are not for the faint-hearted and riskier still for the lactose-intolerant. Visualised as a land of abundance, even our scriptures imagine the residence of Lord Vishnu and his consort Lakshmi as Kshira Sagar, the ocean of milk.

Milk graces all occasions, from the fragrant haldi ubtan used in pre-wedding rituals to the ghee laddoos distributed on Diwali, as the ultimate symbol of nourishment, purity and prosperity. Such traditions, however, seldom care for those who don’t come from such abundance and for whom buying milk goodies from the sweet shop would cost them far more than they could afford.

One such tale of milk penury comes from the Mahabharat. Legend has it that Dronacharya’s son, young Ashwatthama, never knew the taste of milk and wanted to try some. His friends gave him a mixture of flour and water, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Ashamed and incensed, the poor teacher asks his childhood friend, King Drupad, to share some of his wealth with him. The king mocks him forcing him to seek revenge.

In the regions of Bihar and Jharkhand comes a dessert that is borne from milk penury. Dudhauri is a sweet that watery milk and inexpensive arva (white) rice. My mother, Seema, makes it by boiling a concoction of milk and water, then adding rice and simmering it for a short time. Refined flour rather than heat is used to make the mixture creamy and mushy enough to become a dough — balls of this dough are shaped and then fried in oil.

Dudhauri is made with watery milk and inexpensive arva rice, and jaggery.

The ingredients are shaped into balls using refined flour, and then fried.

Fried dudhauri is soaked in a jaggery syrup with a hint of cardamom.

On the other burner of the stove, my mother keeps a kadhai of water where she breaks down chunks of jaggery, and dissolves it until it becomes a dark liquid. This is gur ki chashni (a jaggery syrup). Why not sugar syrup? I ask. Refined sugar used to be a luxury before the Industrial Revolution and so elders figured a way around it, she says. A hint of cardamom adds flavour, and then the fried balls go in for a soak. The sweet is served after a few hours, having become soft, pliant and incredibly tender.

A cousin of dudhauri is dehori, exalted as the rice gulab jamun. It hails from Chhattisgarh. Both sweets are typically made during Holi, especially in Chhattisgarh.

Dehrori is made to celebrate a successful paddy harvest. As Holi marks the herald of the summer and the change in season, it is is celebrated with tartness that comes from the fermented batter of Dehrori.

These days, food influencers and home chefs on social media are trying to reclaim dudhauri and dehrori. They make it with Basmati rice, fry it in ghee and top it with nuts, warq and even saffron strands. Their glamorous creations hardly resemble the sweets’ humble origins, which thus remain unknown, and unregistered.

As a sweet, dudhauri uses much less milk, and simple rice — it is made with every day kitchen ingredients. It is the sweetest tale of milk penury.

SEEMA’S RECIPE FOR DUDHAURI

Ingredients

750 g water
500 g milk
200 g arwa rice
1-2 tsp refined flour
500 g jaggery
3-5 cardamom pods

Method

In a pot, add the milk and water and let it come to a boil. Add rice and let the mixture thicken as the grains cook.
Once everything turns mushy, add spoonfuls of refined flour so that balls of dough can be made.
Fry the balls in oil till they are crispy and resemble gulab jamuns.
In a separate kadhai, add water and chunks of jaggery together. Once the two combine, wait until the mixture begins to boil and turn bubbly.
Add 3-5 cardamom pods split from the front, or use cardamom powder as per your taste, to the mixture and turn the flame off. The syrup should be one-string consistency.
Immediately after, soak the fried balls in the jaggery syrup and cover it.
Serve after 3 hours.

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.

ALSO ON GOYA