Ari unda/ Rice laddos/ Rice Balls

Ari unda meaning rice balls is a traditional sweet of Kerala with very little ingredients but has a wonderful aroma of roasted rice, coconut and cardamon. For me this sweet invokes lots of childhood memories. As children we used to sit around joyfully and watch grandmother and aunts busy pounding and mixing rice and jaggery to make this laddos. Mainly it was made on festive occasions or was packed off along with pickle and preserves as gifts for uncles and cousins when the return after their yearly visits to Kerala. It is usually made by dry roasting matta or chemba rice till brown and then making a fine powder of it. I have instead used a shortcut which my mom uses as it was difficult for me to pound the rice. It came out well and my family was able to enjoy the traditional taste of ari unda.

Ingredients
Rice flour- 1 1/2 cups
Jaggery- 1 cup
Coconut- 3/4 cup
Coconut milk- 1/2 cup
Cardamon powder- 1 tsp
Ghee- 1 tsp
Cashews crushed- 3 tsp
Cumin- a pinch

Take rice flour in a bowl and sprinkle coconut milk little by little and mix the flour with your hands. Do not pour in but just sprinkle and incorporate.You need to wet the flour and make sure that there are no lumps.Also add cumin and roast this flour really fine on medium heat till there is a nice aroma and it becomes crispy. Let this cool off a bit.
Boil jaggery along with 1/2 cup of water strain and remove impurities. But it back to heat and allow it to attain a two thread consistency. Add cashew nuts, coconuts and cardamon powder. Adding coconut will make the mixture watery. Once it again attains the two thread consistency incorporate this into the  rice flour and also add in ghee. Let it cool off a bit. Make small balls when it is still warm( Make sure you can handle it). You can preserve this in a closed container for more than two weeks.

Try this..

Hope you will all enjoy.