Traditional pitha (rice cake), laru (sweet coconut ball), tupula bhaat (sticky rice in banana leaves) are being given a delicious twist with the innovative addition of a surprise ingredient.

A group of cultivators is transforming these Assamese delicacies by giving them a mushroom twist.

Altogether 200 mushroom farmers from Dimoria and Chandrapur blocks on the city’s outskirts, under the banner of Mushroom Development Foundation (MDF), are whipping up such delicacies, with the additional flavour of delicious mushrooms.

“We are trying to give a tasty twist to our traditional Assamese fare by adding mushrooms. This is a bid to promote cultivation and consumption of the protein-rich mushroom, which is also a good source of Vitamin D,” the general secretary of the foundation, Pranjal Baruah, told The Telegraph.

The MDF is a non-profit organisation, started in 1994 for finding livelihood-based solutions from agricultural waste and providing nutritional food security.

Baruah said they were going to form a company of mushroom producers, which will be the first of its kind in the country, comprising mushroom farmers from eight clusters of Dimoria and Chandrapur blocks with each cluster having 25 farmers.

“Not only traditional Assamese food items, we are also preparing noodles, momos, sandwiches, papad and other items containing mushrooms,” he said.

These mushroom-flavoured food items will hit the shelves soon as they are ready for commercial production.

“We will start commercial production as soon as we get the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) licence, which we expect to receive shortly,” Baruah said.

Currently, they are selling raw mushrooms, both fresh and dry varieties, through 30 retail outlets in the city and are also setting up a processing unit here.

“We are helping the mushroom farmers by creating infrastructure for them besides providing them technical knowhow and training,” he said.

Baruah said they have joined hands with the Indian Institute of Food Processing Technology to train farmers.

He said they were now producing more than 200kg raw mushrooms per day, which they aim to increase to 700kg per day next year.

The foundation has put up a stall at the Saras Fair being held at Ganesh Mandir Indoor Stadium field at Khanapara where their various mushroom-based food items have been made available.