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Stuffed Pittha/ Bagiya with Poppy Seed

Servings: 2-3
Making stuffing time: 12 minutes.
Making dough time: 3 minutes.
Stuffing raw pittha time: 1 minutes(each).
Cooking time: 12 minutes.
Total time: 28 minutes.

Pittha is one of the authentic Bihari cuisine made with rice flour, while new crops of rice flood the farmer’s fields in the early winter. It is customary to cook Pittha at least once in a Hindi month of ‘Posh’ in every house in Bihar either sweet or savoury stuffing Pittha.

Today I am going to introduce you the stuffing of poppy seed (khus-khus/ posto) which is my favorite, yummy Pittha the countryside traditional food I have already uploaded other varieties as dal-stuffing, Khoa-stuffing, and plain Pittha and linked… you can see…

Pittha is also called Bagia in Mithila region of Bihar, Puli in Bangla and fara in utter Pradesh in India. It also prepared with wheat flour or sooji (Rava).

Ingredients:

For outer layer:

Raw rice flour: 2 cup
Salt: 1 teaspoon
Ajwain(caraway): ½ teaspoon
Kalongi (nigella sativa): ½ teaspoon

For stuffing:

Khus-Khus (Poppy Seed/ posta): ½ cup
Mustard Oil: 1 tablespoon.
Jeera (Cumin): ½ teaspoon
Onion: 1 no. (Small)
Garlic: 2 flakes
Garlic stem: 1 no. (Optional)
Salt: ½ teaspoon
Green chilli: 1(optional)
Ginger: 1 inch piece
Turmeric powder: ¼ teaspoon
Chilli power: ¼ teaspoon
Coriander powder: ½ teaspoon

Preparation:

For stuffing:

Cut green chilli, onion, ginger, garlic and garlic stem into small pieces, keep aside.
First make fine powder by dry grinding poppy seed with salt then add 2-3 table spoon of water and grind to fine paste, keep aside. (Direct wet grinding of ‘poppy seed’ is a herculean task)
Put a non stick/ heavy bottom pan on the stove; put oil in it, when smokes add cumin seed. Wait for few seconds then add chopped ingredients; stir fry till onion gets translucent ( one minute), add dry masala and grounded poppy seed continue to fry on lower flame till it becomes thick (3-4 minutes). Now stuffing is ready. Keep aside.

For outer layer:

Take a big bowl and put rice flour, ajwain, kalongi and salt, knead the rice flour with hot water, make dough similar to chapatti. (You can knead this into the food processor too; it is convenient; kneading by hand with hot water is somewhat difficult).
Make big lemon size ball with dough; grease your palm with oil and shape it like a bowl, fill 1 spoon full of stuffing in the cavity.
Fold carefully and close it; now give shape round or cylindrical as per you wish, raw Pittha is ready.

Method:

Put 1 litre water in a big pot, heat and bring it to boil, add 5-8 Pittha in it, depending on your pot size.
Pittha should come up after 4-5 minutes, keep cooking on medium flame another 3-4 minutes.
Take it out and put in the room temperature water pot to wash extra surface-starch; put it on the sieve to drain out extra water.
Now Pittha is ready to serve, garnish with fried green chilly.