Bagiya — also called pidukiya in its sweet form — is Mithila’s gentle steamed dumpling: a soft skin of cooked rice flour folded around a warm filling of jaggery, grated coconut and fennel or poppy seeds, then shaped like a half-moon and steamed until it turns glossy and translucent. Unlike the region’s many fried sweets, bagiya is light and oil-free, eaten warm from the steamer.
It belongs especially to winter and to the rites around a newborn child, when the warming sweetness of gur is thought to nourish mother and family. A savoury cousin, stuffed with spiced lentil paste, sits beside it on the same plate — the two forms together showing the Maithil cook’s mastery of the steamed pittha family.