Easy Rice Laddu / Ari unda

Ari Unda is a very popular snack in Kerala. This is an easy version of the traditional Ari unda. With just  three  ingredients. 

Preparation: 

• Wash and soak the rice in water for an hour. Use any boiled variety of rice. 
• Drain the rice. Allow it to drain thoroughly. 
• Heat a thick bottomed pan in medium flame. Add the drained rice into the hot pan and dry roast it, Stir continuously. After some time the rice grains will start popping. Continue roasting until the popping sound comes down to a minimum. Remove from fire. Transfer to another bowl and allow to cool.
• Grind the cooled roasted rice in a mixer bowl. Do not grind to a fine powder. The ground powder should have the consistency of semolina.  
• You can do this step in advance. The roasted rice powder has great shelf life. Preserve in an air-tight container. 
• Grate the jaggery. 
• Grate fresh coconut. 
• In a mixing bowl add the rice powder. Add the grated coconut little by little and mix using your hand, then add the grated jaggery little by little and mix well until you can roll it into a ball like the chappati dough. 
• Take a little mix and roll into lemon  sized ball. Continue this until the whole dough is converted to lemon sized laddus.
• After a day, if any laddu i left over, you can refrigerate. Stays for a week. 

Ingredients: 

With the ingredients given below, i made 21 laddus. 

*Boiled Rice - 1 cup 

Jaggery - 1 cup 

Coconut - 1 cup 

*I used store bought Red Matta Rice. 

Below is the link to the Traditional AriUnda which has great shelf life.
http://ashasnairrajesh.blogspot.com/2016/05/ari-unda-rice-laddu.html 

Ari Unda / Rice Laddu

Ari Unda or Rice Laddu is a traditional snack of Kerala. It is made of rice, jaggery and grated coconut. The Ari unda which i am going to prepare now has very long shelf life. There is another easy ari unda recipe which i will publish later 

Preparation: 

• Melt the jaggery with half cup of water. Sieve and remove the impurities. Transfer the liquid jaggery into a a large, heavy pan. 
• Add the rice flour and fresh coconut into a large bowl. Knead the coconut and rice flour with your hands. Just the rice flour and coconut. Knead well. Roast this mixture on medium flame. Stir continuously. Roast until the mixture changes color and a good aroma arises. The important point is the removal of moisture from the mix. Remove from fire and keep aside. 
• Place the pan of jaggery on medium flame. Stir occasionally. Allow it to thicken. Check the consistency in between. Take a little jaggery in a spoon, wait a few seconds so the heat becomes bearable, take the jaggery in your index finger and thumb and stick the two fingers together and then pull apart, if a single string is formed between your fingers, its time to add the rice mixture into the jaggery syrup. Add the powdered cardamom also. Mix well on low flame. I like the one string consistency because the laddus will remain soft. If you want it harder you can allow the jaggery to thicken to 2 string consistency. Remove the mixture from flame and allow it to cool down to bearable heat. Using your hands make lemon sized laddus. Roll the laddus in a plate of rice flour, so that they won't stick together.
•  If the mixture cools down and you are unable to make balls, keep it on fire again and heat it up a bit. 
• Cool the laddus and store in air tight containers. 
• Serve Ari unda with tea. 

Ingredients: 

Rice Flour - 500 grams (Available in stores) 

Fresh coconut grated - 300 grams 

Jaggery - 800 grams 

Cardamom crushed/ powdered - 10 

Rice flour - 1 cup