Tharu Festival Food · Steamed Rice Cake

Dhikri

Photo: Rajivkilanashrestha / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

The dough is shaped into a sausage-like log and steamed under nothing more than a stretched cotton cloth — no steamer basket involved.

Dhikri is a simple dough of rice flour and warm water, rolled into logs and steamed over a cloth-covered pot until firm, then sliced and served with spicy pickle, lentil soup or curry. Western Tharu communities across the Terai make it as both an everyday snack and a festival staple.

Why it's made this way: It's considered an essential food for the Tharu community's Maghi festival, with appearances at Dashain and Chhath too, tying the humble rice cake to some of the Terai's biggest calendar celebrations.