Sel Roti (Nepali Sweet Rice Ring Bread)
A Nepali festival bread: rice soaked overnight, ground with sugar, banana and cardamom, then poured in a single stream into hot oil to fry as a ring. Made in quantity for Tihar and Dashain and eaten over several days. Crisp outside, chewy within — and it all comes down to the batter's consistency.
Ingredients
- White rice · soaked overnight; jasmine or any plain white rice500 g
- Sugar · 120 g for a less sweet version150 g
- Milk · add it a little at a time200 ml
- Ghee · melted; butter works3 tbsp
- Banana · traditional — it brings aroma and tenderness1
- Salt0.25 tsp
- Frying oil · at least 5 cm deep in the pan
- Spices
- Ground green cardamom1 tsp
- Cloves · finely ground4
- Fennel seeds · optional0.5 tsp
- To serve
- Chiya (Nepali milk tea) · the canonical pairing
- Yogurt or aloo achar · if you're eating it savoury
Steps
Rinse the rice well and soak it overnight, 6–12 hours. Drain it thoroughly in a sieve — leftover water thins the batter and the ring won't hold. (This soak is not counted in the times below.)
- ⏲ 15 min
Blend the drained rice with the sugar, banana, melted ghee, cardamom, cloves, fennel and salt, adding the milk **a little at a time** to get the consistency right. It should fall from a spoon in a ribbon — thicker than pancake batter.
- ⏲ 120 min
Cover the batter and leave it at room temperature for 2–4 hours. It ferments faintly and that's where the characteristic flavour comes from. Overnight in the fridge also works.
- ⏲ 10 min
Heat at least 5 cm of oil in a deep, wide pan to 170°C. A drop of batter should surface after about 5 seconds and turn golden within a minute. Too hot and the outside burns before the inside cooks.
- ⏲ 5 min
Put the batter in a squeeze bottle or piping bag (or cup it in your fist, as it's done at home) and pour a single unbroken stream from about 20 cm above the oil, drawing a circle. Overlap the end onto the start to close the ring.
- ⏲ 3 min
Leave it undisturbed for 20–30 seconds so the shape sets. Turn it with two long skewers or chopsticks and fry 2–3 minutes total, until deep golden on both sides.
- ⏲ 10 min
Stand them on a rack to drain. They crisp up as they cool — don't panic that they're soft straight out of the oil.
Serve with chiya. Cooled completely and sealed they keep for days, and up to a week or two somewhere cool.
Tips & Variations
Variations
- Savoury sel roti: Leave out the sugar, add more salt, and eat it with aloo achar (pickled potato) or a meat curry. Just as common in Nepal.
- Rice flour shortcut: No time to soak and grind? Use 500 g fine rice flour with milk and water. Much faster, though you lose some of the chew.
- Yogurt instead of banana: Three tablespoons of yogurt speeds up the fermentation and makes them a little fluffier.
- Make them small: Around 8 cm across is far easier to turn. Start small if it's your first time.
- A pinch of baking soda: Not traditional, but it compensates for lift when you can't rest the batter overnight.
Tips
- The batter consistency is the whole dish. Too thin and it spreads across the oil instead of holding a ring; too thick and the stream breaks. Add the milk gradually. If it does go thin, bring it back with rice flour a tablespoon at a time.
- Drain the soaked rice properly. Get this wrong and you won't be able to add any milk at all.
- Hold the oil at 170°C. Hotter and the outside darkens while the inside stays raw; cooler and they drink oil and go limp.
- Don't touch them for the first 20–30 seconds. Turned before the shape sets, the ring falls apart.
- Use a squeeze bottle. Nepali cooks pour from a fist, letting the batter run between their fingers. A ketchup bottle or piping bag is easier and far more even.
- Keeping well is the point of this food. It's made in quantity for Tihar (Deepawali) and Dashain, eaten over several days and offered to visitors. That's why the batter takes milk and ghee rather than water.
- Chiya — Nepali ginger-cardamom milk tea — is the pairing.
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