Tissue-thin sheets made from rice starch, filled with jaggery and powdered groundnuts, then folded into neat parcels and sealed. A unique confection of Atreyapuram in Andhra Pradesh — one of the thinnest sweet wrappers made anywhere in India.
Ingredients
For the rice sheets:
1 cup rice flour
3 cups water
a pinch of salt
For the filling:
1/2 cup groundnuts (peanuts) — dry roasted and skins removed, then ground coarsely
1/2 cup jaggery — powdered fine
1/4 tsp cardamom powder
2 tbsp ghee for brushing the sheets
Method
Roast and prepare the peanuts: In a dry pan on medium heat, roast 1/2 cup peanuts stirring constantly for 5 to 6 minutes until skins blister and peanuts smell roasted. Remove from heat. Cool completely. Rub between palms to remove most skins. In a mixer, grind the skinned peanuts for just 3 to 4 seconds — you want a coarse powder, not paste.
Make the filling: Mix the coarsely ground peanuts with finely powdered jaggery and cardamom powder. Taste — it should be sweet, nutty and fragrant. Keep aside.
Make the rice flour paste: In a wide mixing bowl whisk 1 cup rice flour with 3 cups water and a pinch of salt until completely smooth and lump-free. The paste should be very thin — much thinner than dosa batter, almost like water with a slight thickness.
Heat a non-stick or cast iron flat pan: Place a flat pan on medium heat. Let it heat evenly for 2 to 3 minutes. The pan must be very smooth and evenly heated — any hot spots will create uneven sheets.
Make the first thin sheet: Dip a small cloth or flat brush in the rice paste. Quickly and lightly brush a very thin layer of the paste onto the hot pan surface — one single, quick, even stroke. The layer should be transparent-thin, like a thin coat of paint. Within 30 seconds the sheet will dry and the edges will begin to lift.
Peel off the thin sheet: Carefully peel the dried thin rice sheet off the pan using your fingers — work quickly from one edge. The sheet should be tissue-thin, almost translucent and dry. Place it on a plate. If it tears easily, the paste was too thin; if it peels off in chunks, it was too thick.
Make multiple sheets: Continue making sheets, brushing the paste and peeling off each one. Stack them on a plate. You should be able to make 20 to 25 sheets from this quantity.
Assemble the pootharekulu: Take one rice sheet. Brush it very lightly with ghee using your fingertip or a brush. Sprinkle 1 to 2 teaspoons of the peanut-jaggery filling evenly over the surface. Do not overfill.
Fold into a parcel: Fold the sheet like an envelope — fold one long side inward, then the other. Then fold the two short ends inward to form a neat rectangular parcel about 5 to 6 cm long. The ghee helps seal the folds.
Make all the parcels: Repeat for all the sheets. Arrange on a serving plate. Serve at room temperature. They stay good at room temperature for 2 to 3 days.
Note: Pootharekulu (poothu = wrapped, rekulu = sheets) is a speciality of Atreyapuram village in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh — this village has been making this sweet for hundreds of years and the entire village economy revolves around it. The technique of making tissue-thin rice sheets is a skill passed down through generations. Commercial pootharekulu factories now export this sweet internationally.