PINACA / PINAGR

Ingredients

180gms Goan rice

200gms pyramid jaggery

120 – 130gms freshly grated coconut (1 coconut approx.)

5 cardamoms

*** You can reduce the sweetness by just adding 150gms jaggery

Method:

1. Clean the rice properly (wash and dry the rice).

2. Now roast the rice in a pan and set aside to cool.

3. Once it is cool, grind it to a fine powder (I like it a bit grainy).

4. Reserve 2 tablespoon rice flour aside.

5. Scrape the jaggery.

6. In a mortar-pestle pound the cardamom seeds.

7. In a pan add coconut, cardamom and jaggery

8. Cook it on low fire till the jaggery melts (add 1 teaspoon water).

9. As soon as the jaggery melts switch off the gas and let it cool.

10.When the jaggery is warm to touch add the rice flour and mix well (add little at a time).

11.Let it rest for 3 minutes.

12.Please don’t be in a hurry to shape them when the mixture is warm the result would be sticky.

13.Once it cools down apply 3-4 drops of water on your hand and just make them moist.

14.Take the desired amount of mixture and shape then into cylindrical shape pinaca. I like to keep the pinagr / pinaca small (2 bite size).

15.Dust them with little reserved flour and give it a final roll on the hand.

16.Place them in a plate.

17.Once all are done put them in an air tight container and store.

18.Serve your Goan Pinaca / Pinagr with hot cup of rose tea.

Enjoy life, it’s delicious.

*** You can grind coconut and jaggery together in a mixer. Back in the days they would do this with a grinding stone and add rice flour to form a dough.