Thinai Adhirasam Using Nattu Sarkarai Video Recipe - Nitha Kitchen (2024)

November 12, 2020 By Sangeetha Priya 2 Comments

Thinai Adhirasam : I most preferably use millets in Idli Dosa batter, sometimes in Pongal and when it comes to Ragi I use in baking as well 🙂 But recently when my friend called me and asked

a sweet to share with jaggery ie on a healthy note. Also she said its ok to be deep fried for her family who underwent a tough phase recently and don’t want to buy any eatables outside for this Diwali. Thinai Adhirasam / Foxtail Millet Arisa Pitha is the one quickly stricken my mind and also shared some unrefined sugar burfi recipes to her along with it.

I never made such a small quantity adhirasam in life (refer video). In the video I made three different adhirasam versions at the same time. First I thought of putting everything in a single video and the recorded video exceeded more than an hour 🙂 so finally decided to split it in to three. Those are Thinai Adhirasam, Maavu Arisi Nattu Sarkarai Authentic Adhirasam and Raw Rice/Sona Masoori Jaggery Versions.

I do have several Adhirasam recipes with different sweetener and different rice varieties and now with Millet Flour. One thing I want to clear if you have a question in mind like why these many Adhirasam posts in blog and how they are different. According to different sweetener and different rice or millet the adhirasam dough consistency varies which is the main thing to note. also the sugar syrup for jaggery or palm jaggery is more or less same with gorgeous unrefined sugar color. The processed jaggery or store bought light color vellam has different syrup consistency and I am going to talk all in detail.

With the jaggery techniques I showed here which was taught my mom , my adhirasams never had hard dough or dissolving in oil issues. Everytime they turned out in good shape and one or two times crispy because of jaggery and oil I used during initial days.

Syrup/Jaggery

During the initial days its was very hard to find a good jaggery for making Adhirasam in USA. Some jaggery gave super white color adhirasam even, some I felt like sugar was not enough and some turned super crispy and even after few days of wait they remained so (one more reason for it is oil, will talk about it in next paragraph).

Jaggery Powder/Nattu Sarkarai and Palm Jaggery gives super taste, softness and adhirasam naturally fluff like poori because of them. But if you don’t get those two sweetener then use Jaggery, try to use Dark Color Kolhapuri jaggery and please check string consistency in Raw Rice Jaggery Adhirasam Recipe (video soon). The syrup consistency of Palm Jaggery and Nattu Sarkarai / Brown Sugar is dense compared to regular jaggery. Also I have a separate post on it do check HERE if interested.

What type of Oil to use for Frying?

For crispy ariselu do use any oil meant for frying and for soft Adhirasam don’t use oil marketed as “for crispy frying”. I use peanut oil/cold pressed oil and cholestrol free oil for frying adhirasam.

Store bought Millet Flour can be used?

Nope. This Adhirasam recipe needs flour with moisture so use freshly made raw millet flour and don’t fry the flour at any point. To retain the moisture in the flour once done with powdering and filtering do press it tightly and cover with wet cloth till you get ready with the syrup.

What type of vessel to use to Ferment Adhirasam Dough?

Use stainless steel or glass bowl to store the Adhirasam dough and cover it tightly till use.

• The reasons are
  • fermentation happens and it won’t easily spoil it
  • day by day the dough thickens and after 8hr if not you can repair it (check notes).
  • even it stays good at room temperature in those vessels for a week when handled properly.

Thinai Adhirasam Highlights

1. Make fresh millet flour and don’t use instant store bought flour.
2. Don’t dry fry the flour, it needs moisture while mixing with jaggery syrup.
3. Coming to millets you can use Thinai, samai, panivaragu, kuthiraivalli for this recipe and also half rice and half millet proportion works.
4. Use small hole sieve to sift the flour for soft adhirasam.
5. After sifting each batch of flour press tight to retain the moisture.
6. Brown Sugar and jaggery needs 1/3 cup water to melt but if using palm jaggery for the same recipe it needs 1/2 cup water quantity.
7. I have mentioned three methods to check the string consistency in the video at and choose your convenient one.
8. When the prepared dough is hard and has little crack it is ok, when it cooks in hot oil, jaggery melts and turns puffy, soft and perfect adhirasam.
9. Also little hard adhirasam dough is fine when you work with palm it turns flexible and gives perfect shaped adhirasam.
10. If the dough is super dry then warm and mix leftover syrup to the dough.
11. When adhirasam dough is slightly hard to make round and shape do add drops of milk , mix well and work on it.
12. If the dough is gooey even after 24 hours do add raw millet flour or rice flour to this mixture , mix it and allow fermentation for 8 hours at least before deep frying (do refer Raw Rice Jaggery Video for reference).
13. Always heat the oil well before dropping the flattened adhirasam dough.
14. Once they puff up do reduce the temperature to medium this way the inner dough cooks and the outer layer turns gorgeous brown.
15. Add necessary oil to fry, can make more than one adhirasam at a time but do concentrate otherwise they turn dark brown so quickly.

How to make Raw Millet Flour

• Clean, Rinse and soak millets for 2 hours.
• Later drain the excess water, pat dry over cloth for 30-40 minutes (Pic 1).
• It still needs to be wet while grinding the millets (Pic 2) and 3/4 cups millet yields little less than 1.5 cups of flour.
• Do grind them in batches if the quantity is high and at any cost don’t heat the flour while grinding.
• Sieve the flour immediately after grinding it (Pic 3). When you have coarse mixture you can include it in the next batch of grinding.
• Do use small hole sieve to make soft adhirasam if you use big hole sieve then you get crispy adhirasam.

• Once done with preparing millet flour press it tightly (pic 4) till you prepare the jaggery/sugar syrup so that you can retain moisture in the flour.
• If you make the flour ahead of time wrap it tightly and store in the refrigerator not more than a day.
• Due to moisture in the flour molds form so I won’t recommend storing the flour in the fridge for a longer time but wanted to clear the followers queries.
• You can freeze it in an air tight container and thaw properly before adding the hot syrup.

Syrup Preparation

• Measure the palm jaggery or Natural unrefined Sugar (Naatu sarkarai).
• Add 1/2 Cup of water to it if using palm jaggery, other powdered version needs 1/3 cup of water.
• Palm jaggery needs more water to dissolve/melt compared to any powder form jaggery varieties.
• Boil in medium flame, you can filter it once sugar gets dissolved and bring it to boil again.
• Add cardamom powder to it, I used cardamom powdered in sugar if using cardamom powder alone reduce to 1/2tsp.

• In 5 minutes (approx) you will get nice and beautiful foams (Pic 2) from the syrup , now onwards start testing for the consistency.
• I am showing three methods to check the right consistency do choose any.
• While checking simmer or switch off the stove so that it won’t cross the right stage.
• Take a drop of syrup (not so hot) and stretch between your fingers.
• Either one thread (pic 3) or 2-thread (pic 4) or between 1 and 2 but not less than 1 string consistency is the right stage for thinai adhirasam.
• For second method , take water in a small cup add few drops of jaggery syrup, if it is in right consistency the jaggery should stand separate from water (Pic 5) and when you rub it with your finger you can see an impression there Pic 6 (anyways the syrup should not dissolve with water, refer video).

• In third method, same do drop more drops of jaggery when cooled you can collect it as a ball (in some jaggery this won’t happen) Or it has to stand separate from water (Pic 7 and Pic 8).

Mixing Part

• Once you are sure the syrup is of right stage, Immediately pour the hot syrup over prepared rice flour (Pic 1) and mix it properly.
• Beginners do always reserve few tbsps of jaggery (pic 2) and rice flour before mixing together. That way you can finally adjust the adhirasam dough consistency.
• Do check the Video how I mix the batter, if at any point you are not attaining this consistency and if the batter is tight add more reserved syrup on the same hand if the batter is gooey add tsps of reserved millet flour.

• Initially the batter should flow like folding ribbon (Pic 3), So this is the right consistency.
• And slowly syrup gets absorbed by the millet flour and becomes thick dough.
• Keep stirring for few minutes say 5-8 minutes so that the heat evaporates quickly.
• Leave the dough uncovered for the adhirasam dough to cool off.
• Either leave the dough little open so that after 8 hours of fermentation it turns to perfect adhirasam maavu (Pic 4) OR
• Once cooled down completely, cover/seal it well and let rest in room temperature for over night to 5 days maximum.

Thinai Adhirasam Frying Part

• Usually after 8 hours you can start using/frying the adhirasam dough.
• But if you fixed any runny dough with raw rice flour or store bought rice flour, then allow at least 8 hours before frying.
• Tastes good when you leave it for 8-36 hours of fermentation at least.
• Once you are ready to fry, make equal size balls from the dough.
• Take a plate/ziploc sheet grease with oil (pic 1), take a ball (Pic 2) and flat over it to round shape with medium thickness (Pic 2& 3) for soft athirasam.
• Also I showed a method in video to make perfect rounds..ie mark round in a ziploz or parchment/butter paper using lid/cup and food writer(edible pen) refer Pic 1.
• Once you start flatting each balls to round shape simultaneously heat oil in a wok/pan.

• Mostly I fry one adhirasam at a time so I choose a small kadai for it.
• You can top thinai adhirasam with sesame seeds as shown in pictures above I added sesame seeds at the bottom before flattening each dough because I pressed it well with dough so the seeds won’t scatter much in oil (refer Pic 6).
• Also you can make thinai adhirasam with hole or not.
• Once you shaped the adhirasam as shown in pictures (2 & 3) to medium thickness do drop it in hot oil.
• Here the frying temperature is also one main important thing to note.
• In medium flame you have to fry it. The oil should not be too hot nor too low in temperature.
• Too hot temperature makes the athirasam to turn golden brown quick and inside won’t cook properly.
• The low temperature makes the athirasam to turn hard and crisp.
• So maintain a right temperature (while adding the raw athirasam the oil should be bit hot later reduce the temperature), add one at a time when one starts puffing up you can add the next adhirasam if you wish.
• The puffing athirasam (pic 5&6) is the right indication, also pour oil over adhirasam like we do for poori (Pic 5).

• Once it reaches golden brown (pic 7&8), take it out from the oil and if interested press it gently between two spatulas to drain the excess oil (pic 7).
• Or wipe it all over adhirasam using kitchen paper towel to remove excess oil around and keep aside in a plate.
• Once cooled down completely store in an air tight container at room temperature.
• Depends on the nature of oil, may stay light crisp the first day but later it turns soft.
• When properly stored thinai adhirasam stays fresh and good for a month at room temperature 🙂

Thinai Adhirasam Video Tutorial

Thinai Adhirasam Ingredients

Whole Grain Foxtail Millet – 3/4 Cup (when soaked and powdered yields raw millet flour around 1.25 cups to a little less than 1.5 cups)
Raw Cane Jaggery/Jaggery Powder / Nattu Sarkarai – 3/4 Cup
Cardamom Powder – 1tsp (powdered with sugar)
Dry Ginger Powder/Sukku – A pinch
Optional Sesame Seeds
Ghee/Oil – To fry

See Also

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Recipe Card

Thinai Adhirasam Dough Repairing Tips

1. I never had experience of split adhirasam in oil but I heard from my mom that if the jaggery consistency went wrong then it happens.
2. With the jaggery technique I showed here which was taught my mom , my adhirasams never had hard dough or dissolving in oil issues.
3. Always reserve 1/4 cup jaggery syrup and few tbsp ground flour to adjust consistency later.
4. If you don’t have raw rice flour and the batter is gooey do add instant rice flour 1 or 2 tsp not more than that OR
5. Stir the adhirasam batter over stove in low flame for a while without burning the dough (this tip definitely works).
6. Make sure the repaired dough sits on room temperature for 8 hours at least before the deep fry.
7. You can store the Athirasam dough in an air tight container in refrigerator for more than a month.
8. When you are about to deep fry take the dough as needed keep it out at room temperature for 1 hour at least before frying.
9. If the dough is too hard add few drops of milk, mix it and make balls, flat it round, then fry them in oil as mentioned above.
10. Also you can make a small batch of jaggery syrup then mix with hard dough, leave it for 1 hour and then fry it.
11. Add hot syrup to the ground rice and the rice flour cooks in it and it forms bubbles while mixing which its normal.
12. The adhirasam dough can be stored in room temperature for up to 7 days in winter and 5 days in summer when handled properly.