Dudh Puli

 

Makar (Poush) Sankranti is just around the corner. This is when pithe is made in Bong homes. This weekend we had decided to stay at home and just relax. So I took the opportunity to make a variety of pithe. Since last time I received some feedback that the steps seemed complex, I recorded a video. Hope you enjoy that. Also I have decided to make videos for recipes which have nuances around how they are made. I am still working out the quirks so my first attempt has a bit of jaundice (see the video you will get it). My tech-support tells me it’s something to do with bad white balance, but trust me, we will get this right the next time around. Check out the video below, the detailed steps and process follows in this blog.

 

Ingredients For Shell

• 2 cups rice flour
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 2 tsp. ghee (Clarified Butter)
• 4 cups water

Ingredients For Stuffing

• 1 cup grated coconut (Fresh or Frozen)
• 1/2 cup fresh cream
• 4 tbsp. milk powder
• 4 tbsp. date palm jaggery

1. 6 cups full cream milk for cooking pulis
2. !/2 cup date palm jaggery

How To Prepare Stuffing

Take all the ingredients listed under stuffing in a pan.

Heat the mixture in a pan. Cook it on low flame till everything comes together and leaves the sides of the pan. Remove and allow it to cool. Your stuffing for puli is ready.

How To Prepare The Shell

In a pan take water along with sugar and ghee. Put on the heat and let it come to a boil. When the water starts boiling add rice flour slowly and keep mixing. Once you have added the entire rice flour keep stirring till the mixture turn into a dough. Cover the pan and turn the heat to its lowest mark. Allow the dough to sit for 2-3 minutes.

let the dough cool down a bit. When it is safe to handle take a lemon sized ball from it and roll it with very gentle pressure into a disc of 1.5 inch diameter. You can use regular dry all purpose flour to roll them.

Put a tea spoon full of coconut mixture at the center of the disc. Apply water at the edges. Fold the two edges and give it a shape of half moon. Press them tightly so that  they don't open while boiling. This is called the puli.

Take 6 cups of milk in a heavy bottom pan. Boil it on high heat while stirring continuously.Cook till t reduces to its half. Now add jaggery to it and mix well. Wait till it again comes to a boil. Gently slide each stuffed puli into the milk. Let them get cooked in the milk for 2-3 minutes. turn off the heat and allow them to cool before you serve.

Doodh Puli

Let me start by wishing all my readers happy sankranti.

Poush-sankranti or makar sankranti is celebrated as the harvest festival in West Bengal. Harvest festival is as expected celebrated with food made from the fresh harvest of rice and date palm jaggery. Bongs famous for their sweet tooth use the festival as an excuse to make all sorts of sweets.

At my home my mom used to make pati-shapta and dudh puli (or doodh puli) every year. She tried making some other types of pithe but I abundantly discouraged her as these were my favorites. I have already shared my pati-shapta recipe, here goes that of dudh-puli.

Ingredients

1. 2 cups rice flour
2. 2 tbsp maida (all purpose flour)
3. Warm water
4. 2 cups grated coconut
5. 1 cup khoya (Evaporated milk solids)
6. 1cup khejur gur (date palm jaggery). You can use 1 cup of sugar instead
7. 1 tsp. cardamom powder. Optional. I don’t use as I want to retain the flavor of the gur.
8. 1 can evaporated milk ( If you don't want to use evaporated milk you ca use 11/2 lit pf full cream milk instead.)
9. 1 can milk. ( I used the can of evaporated milk to measure )
10. Half cup khejur gur

Procedure

In a mixing bowl mix grated coconut, khoya and khejur gur.

Heat the mixture in a pan. Cook it on low flame till everything comes together and leaves the sides of the pan. Remove and allow it to cool. This will be your stuffing or pur.

Mix rice flour and maida in a bowl. Knead it with warm water by adding little warm water at a time. The dough should be soft but not sticky.

Make small balls out of the dough. Flatten out each ball with your fingers in the shape of a disc. Stuff the filling inside it. Fold the two edges and give it a spindle shape. Press them tightly so that  they don't open while boiling. This is called the puli.

In a heavy bottom pan mix together evaporated milk and normal milk and turn on the heat. Bring it to a boil. Once it starts boiling add pulis one by one. Cook them for about 10 minutes while stirring the milk intermittently. Pulis will come to the surface of the milk once they are done. Add jaggery and mix everything together gently.

Cook for another couple of  minutes and serve them hot or cold.  

Pati-shapta (Indian Rice Flour Crêpe)

Poush-sankranti or makar sankranti is celebrated as the harvest festival in West Bengal. Harvest festival is as expected celebrated with food made from the fresh harvest of rice and date palm jaggery. Bongs famous for their sweet tooth use the festival as an excuse to make all sorts of sweets which are rice flour crepe based. These are called pithe.

Even though I make it every year, this is the first time when my daughter took a sudden liking to it. The liking soon turned into addiction. Even 5 minutes, she’d sneak up to the refrigerator and grab a handful. She even got it packed for her school lunch.

I have tried making patishapta with different proportion of maida, suji mixed with rice flour. However, the proportion used below worked out best for me. The pithe remains soft and yummy for 3-4 days.

Making pati-shapta is a three step process. You need to first make the stuffing that goes inside, then you need to make the crepe, finally bring it all together to make pati-shapta.

Ingredients For Filling / Pur

1. 1 lb. grated coconut
2. 1 lb. khoya/concentrated milk solids (an alternative to khoya is a cup of milk powder)
3. 3/4th cup khejur gur (date palm jaggery)

Procedure Of making Pur

In a large mixing bowl mix all the above ingredients thoroughly and check the sweetness. Adjust according to your taste. In a pan, cook the coconut mixture on a low flame till the mixture comes together and leaves the sides of the pan. You need to stir continuously to avoid the mixture from sticking to the base of the pan. Allow the mixture to cool down. Your filling is ready to use.

 

Ingredients For Crêpe

1. 2 cups maida / all-purpose flour
2. 1/2 cup semolina
3. 1/2 cup rice flour
4. 2,3 tbsp of powdered sugar
5. 3-4 cups of cold milk
6. Ghee (clarified butter) for later use during frying

Make The Batter

Mix all dry ingredients together and slowly add milk to make an uniform batter. Mix well and make sure that no lump is formed. The batter will be little thinner than pancake batter.

Pati+shapta

Heat a non-stick skillet or tawa and evenly spread a teaspoon of ghee/clarified butter. Sprinkle some water over it and when the water starts to sizzle, wipe off the ghee with a kitchen towel. You need to repeat this step before making each patishapta but use just few drops of ghee instead of a spoon full.

Pour a ladle full of batter on the tawa and with the back of the ladle spread it in a circle like making dosa. Cook it on low flame for 2-3 minutes. Put a spoon full of filling on one side and then roll it like a crepe. Step by step guide is below, click to enlarge.

		Making Pati-Shapta VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

You can have it, as it is, or spread 1 or 2 spoon of sweet condensed milk or liquid jaggery over it. Serve it hot.

Nolen Gurer Sondesh/Sandesh With Ricotta Cheese

My food scout came back and reported to me of his finding of some great home made Sondesh at his office. It was made by his colleague’s husband Somnath and he apparently used Ricotta cheese instead of chhena. It made a lot of sense to me because Ricotta is very much like chhena with the added advantage that you don’t have to work hard to get all the water out of chhena while making sandesh (a process call jaak).

So I sent my scout back to get the recipe, which he did. I cycled through the process couple of times and here is my adaptation of that recipe.

Ingredients

1. 4 cups ricotta cheese
2. 2 cups heavy cream
3. 1 can sweetened condensed milk
4. Sugar ( quantity depends according to your sweet tooth)
5. 6 tbsp. of notun guur (date palm jaggery)
6. 1 tsp. cardamom powder
7. Ghee (clarified butter). Optional

Procedure

In a mixing bowl, mix together all ingredients other than jaggery and cardamom powder. Mix them really well to make a smooth batter.

Microwave it for about 6 mins, stirring once or twice in between. Then transfer the batter to a nonstick pan and stir till the mixture thickens to the consistency shown in the photograph. The mixture will not stick to the bottom of the pan instead it will form a lump together.

Sprinkle cardamom powder and add jaggery to it. Cook on very low flame for one more min. This intermediate form is called Makha Sondesh and is sold as it is. You might want to keep some of it aside and claim you made two types of sondesh.

Allow it to cool down a little so that you can touch it. If you have a mould then grease it with ghee (clarified butter) now. Take a small portion of the mixture and press it down on the mould with a wet hand, smooth the edges and carefully take it out. If you don't want to use moulds, you can use your hands and fingers to shape them as you like. I used the stone mould which my grandma passed down to me (in the picture below).

Let the sondesh to cool down. They will harden once cooled.

Notun gurer payesh (Rice pudding or Kheer with date palm Jaggery)

While we adopted some of the western traditions like cutting cake at birthdays we have forgotten some of our very own. Bong moms always fed their children payesh on their birthday mornings. Generally served in silverware with loads of love. This is the payesh I always make for my daughter and this year was no exception.

In my childhood I used to never have payesh outside my home, as I never liked it in any other home. It took me some time to figure out why. There are 2 predominant ways to make payesh. I only like the method developed across border in Bangladesh (bangal payesh). The recipe below captures how my didu (grandma) and her daughters (my mom included) makes/made payesh. It’s more laborious but the fruit or payesh of labor is always sweeter.

Ingredients

1. 1 lit of full cream milk
2. 50 gm. of gobindobhog rice or kaala-jeera rice
3. 100gms of sugar
4. 50-100 gm. of khejur-gur (date palm jaggery) depending on your sweetness.

Procedure

Wash the rice, drain and keep aside.

Pour milk in a heavy bottom pan and bring it to a boil. When it starts boiling add pre- washed rice to it and start stirring. You have to stir it continuously to prevent scalding at bottom as it thickens.

During the entire process you have to control the heat intermittently so the milk doesn't boil over. Wait till the rice gets cooked before you add sugar. It normally takes 30-40 mins for the rice on a medium heat to get cooked.

By this time the milk will change its color from milky white to a rich ivory. Once the rice is done add sugar**. The moment you add sugar the milk will loose its thickness. You need to cook it and stir continuously so that it regains its previous thickness.

When the milk is thickened to its right consistency turn off the heat. Wait for about five minutes to allow the payesh to cool down a bit (make sure you keep stirring during this time as well to prevent the formation of skin on top) and then add the jaggery depending on your sweetness level. Serve hot or cold.

I internationally omitted spices and nuts (like cardamom, cashew, raisins, etc.) This recipe allows you to enjoy the richness of the jaggery and doesn’t let the spices mask it’s flavor.

**TIP: Adding sugar before the rice is boiled, hampers the process of rice being cooked properly so add sugar only when the rice is well done.

Now get some remedy for your sore wrist, you’ll need it with all the stirring.

Nolen Gur Rossogollar Payesh (Rasgulla and Date Palm Jaggery Kheer)

In our childhood all the local date palm trees were used to collect date palm sap during the early Winter months. Visiting sap collectors would climb up the trees, make cuts in them and then tie earthen pots below it for the sap to collect. Early in the morning around 4:30 a.m. we’d be awaken and offered the super sweet juice that gets collected. By mid-day the sap warmed by the sun would ferment and turn into pretty intoxicating stuff, something we never had access to :)

The same sap was then boiled in shallow vessels to turn them into the nolen guur or date palm jaggery. Date palm jaggery still remains a very season ingredient in bong dishes in spite of our independence from the seasonal supply of the jaggery.

Todays dish is a kheer or payesh made from Rasgulla and the jaggery. I found all of the ingredients from local Indian stores in the US.

Ingredients

1. 10 rasgulla or Rossogolla ( I have used canned ones and this is available even online Amazon link)
2. 1 lit full cream milk
3. 100 gm. of sugar
4. 50-100 gm. of nolen guur (Date palm jaggery). Amount depends on the sweetness you like.

Procedure

Drain out all the syrup from the canned rasgulla and gently squeeze each individual rasgulla to remove excess syrup from them.

Bring the milk to boil and test whether the jaggery is suitable or not. To test take half cup of boiled milk and add 1 spoon of jaggery to it. If it curdles your dish for the day is doomed as you cannot use that jaggery, if it doesn't go ahead.

Boil the milk till it is half its original quantity. During the entire cooking process you have to constantly stir it to avoid scalding. Add sugar to it and stir till sugar gets completely dissolved in milk.

Now do a taste test (how sweet it is) and add jaggery accordingly to the thickened milk. Wait till it dissolves. Very gently add rasgullas to the prepared milk and bring it to one boil. Turn off the heat and let it cool.

Your payesh is ready to be devoured.