Pantry Essential – Lahipeeth (Alla Hittu)

As the title suggests, this is something that I always have in my pantry. Now the reason that this is such a considerable fact is that it is not available here in London, not even in the Indian stores, where otherwise you get almost everything.  So how do I make sure that I always have this in store? I get it from India whenever I visit of course. And I get loads of it. This is always on my ‘to buy’ list whenever I go to India or if some one is visiting from there.

One of the fondest memories of my childhood consist of the evenings spent at my Grandparents place, where my grandmother used to prepare these delicious snacks in a jiffy which were not very complicated to make but were lip smacking delicious all the same. Very simple, with the simplest of the ingredients, the key word here, as is evident, is Simple. One of the best examples is the Lahi Peeth (Marathi) or Alla Hittu (Kannada).

Lahi (Marathi) or Allu (kannada) means Popcorn in the respective languages and Peeth or Hittu means flour. Thus translated Lahipeeth or Alla Hittu simply means flour of popcorn. But this popcorn
is different from the popular popcorn, it is actually made from Jawar (Sorghum) and not corn itself.

The process of making Lahipeeth is as interesting as the end product is tasty.

The popcorn is made using Jawar (Sorghum) by heating a large Kadai and then popping the sorghum by roasting them. At the same time the Kadai has to be covered so that the 'popcorn' dont pop out!

The freshly made popcorn is great to eat as it is, but it can be made into a savoury snack item by tempering it with Mustard seeds, cumin seeds, Turmeric, Curry leaves & chillies and then seasoning with salt.

And then

the popcorn is ground into a flour using the Beesuvakallu (Chakki in Hindi, Grinding stone). This would be done in the afternoons where all the ladies in village would gather. Some made the allu, some grinding it, some preparing the snack etc, turning the task into a social get together. Nowadays though this is done in advanced machines on a large scale basis and the Lahipeeth is available in 'packets'. These packets are available in most of the stores in Pune and some specialty stores in Bombay too. 

I always get these packets from Pune from this store, R P Vaidya, most of the times. This store also supplies me with many other ‘essential’ items that I get from India such as Papad, Kurdai (Sandige), Kanda – Lassun Masala, Bhajni etc.

There are various methods to enjoy Lahipeeth and here I am giving the sweet version.

Lahipeeth (Allahittu) – Sweet version

Take 1 cup of lahipeeth and add about 1 tablespoon sugar. To this add enough milk to make a paste, no too runny.  Mix well till the sugar is completely dissolved. Add some melted ghee (clarified butter). Mix properly and enjoy.

There are no fixed quantities here. Take as much lahipeeth as you want and adjust the sugar to your taste. The quantity of the milk has to be adjusted to get the desired consistency.



Another way is to proceed the same way as above but replace the sugar with Jaggery. Even though this one is also a sweet option, it tastes totally different than the above one.

My daughter S likes this a lot and so does GM actually. The ghee adds to the taste and is an important ingredient if you ask me. So dont skip it.



This goes to Cooking For Kids – Filling Breakfasts event, started by Sharmi and hosted here at Taste Buds this time.

Today is the last day to send in your entries so hurry up! The round up will be posted early next week.