Til Pitha

Til pitha is a sweet from Assam in which sesame and a sweetener are rolled up in a thin, griddle-cooked rice wrapper. “Til” means sesame. Breaking open the slender tube reveals a filling of toasty black sesame and jaggery. It is also made during Bihu, the harvest festival.

Making til pitha on a griddle heated over a wood fire. Bokakhat, Assam, 2021. Baby Devi 26 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Reduced-size version from the source; no changes to the content after retrieval.

Grinding rice into flour and rolling a thin wrapper

In one method, glutinous rice is soaked in water, drained and finely ground, and the flour is used for the wrapper. Black sesame is roasted, coarsely ground and combined with jaggery to make the filling. The rice flour is spread thinly on a hot griddle and cooked, the filling is placed on top, and the wrapper is rolled up while it is still pliable. Roasting the sesame brings out its aroma, and the contrast in texture with the thin rice wrapper can be enjoyed.

The glutinous rice used is a type of rice called bora saul in Assam. In another method, the soaked rice is pounded into flour with a foot-operated wooden tool called a dhenki. In some cases, the griddle is not oiled. Some makers introduce a method for beginners in which water is added to make a pourable batter, which is cooked thinly and rolled around sesame and jaggery.

Bihu kitchens and markets

Tekeli pitha, also from Assam, is made by steaming moistened rice flour. Til pitha is cooked thinly on a griddle and rolled, so even though the ingredients are similar, the shape and the way it is cooked differ. One maker writes of memories of their mother rolling many of them during Bihu and serving them to visiting relatives and friends. Neighbors also came to borrow the family’s iron mortar, called an ural, to pound rice for their own pithas.

Kamal Barua recalls that as Bhogali Bihu drew near, the sound of dhenkis pounding rice echoed around the house, and he was drawn in by the aroma of the til pitha his grandmother made. Besides pithas wrapped in a griddle-cooked wrapper, steamed tekeli pitha and sunga pitha, cooked in bamboo tubes, also filled the festival table. One year he went to the market to buy pitha and saw lines forming at the makers’ stalls.

Batter spread on a griddle and finished, rolled til pitha. 2019, NabaJyoti / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Reduced-size version from the source; no changes to the content after retrieval.

Glossary