Uttanki - A failed experiment & Paniyarams

The saying goes " Behind every successful man there is a woman " . In same way I would like to add that behind every successful dish there are few unsuccessful expreriments.  This dish was one of them , which   tests your patience and teaches you to be more careful the next time.  I tried this sweet twice and stopped because making rice flour mentioned in the recipe was time consuming and the sweet was very oily . But I am determined to give it one more try and hope to become successful in it.

Since I have become a member of   ICC  ( indian-cooking-challenge )  every month I am learning new and unique dishes from the corners of our India and am getting amazed to see the vast variety that we have .

 For this month's challenge Srivalli   chose yet another awesome traditional sweet for us to try out. This time it was  Sweet Rice Crepes from the state of Andhra called  Utanki . What an unusual name and mind you the method of preparation is equally  unique.

 Firstly I had never heard of this sweet and so eagerly wanted to try it out. Though one thing which seemed quite complicated was making rice flour at home.

Though I managed making the rice flour batter , frying part was equally hard. The batter though formed threads were not forming a firm crepe shape in oil and kept sticking to the sides of the kadhai and I ended up with something which you can see in the clicks. The clicks are from my second attempt . The experiment also was very messy as the oil kept on splattering on the kitchen platform when I was trying to make the strings fall from my fingers.

So finally added some Semolina and Oats and made sweet paniyarams which got over very quickly.

But I have to mentions that whatever the shape,  when the sweet cooled down it was crispy though oily n sticky but tasted amazing.

 Thanks Srivalli for introducing us to such unique and traditional dishe. Though I couldn't successfully make it , it was a very different experience and loved trying it out.

Original Recipe  from Divya

Ingredients :

2 n 1/2 cup.......................rice
1 n 1/2 cup..............................sugar
1 cup or little more .........milk
Oil for deep frying

Method : 


For homemade rice flour, soak the rice overnight.

Drain out the water and grind it to make a very fine powder.

Seive the ground flour to get a very smooth powder.

Again grind and seive , repeat this 2 times to get very fine powder.

In a bowl add flour, sugar and milk and mix well.

Keep aside for 2 to 3 hours or till sugar dissolved completely.

Grind this mixture again in a grinder for making a smooth uniform paste.

If  the batter is too thick add little milk.

To check the right consistency of the batter dip your hand in the batter.

When you take out your hand the batter should flow in thin strings from your fingers.

Now the batter is ready.

Heat oil for frying .

Now take the batter vessel near the kadhai and dip your hand in the batter.

Rotate your hand round and round above the kadhai so that the thin strings fall in round shape.

Do this 3 to 4 times till a round crepe  like shape is formed in the oil.

Fry it on both sides till golden in colour.

But what I got was a sticky mass which did not become hard and the batter kept spreading in  oil.

So finally decided to use the batter in making sweet paniyarams.

Finally added a fistful of rawa and 1 cup oats and made paniyarams.