Dudh Puli Pithe and it snowed

When I started cooking as an everyday cook, I know that’s a long story, won’t go into details, there are many setbacks to discuss here, but keeping in mind the determination, I never gave up even if I failed in making-um cooking many things. Oh! And failures do make us realize that we are human after all not machine.

Anyhow, I have seen how earnestly my Ma would be making various puli pithe during poush Sankranti and some times even after it was way over, even though she has spent her entire life being a “probashi Bengali”. After my marriage, I even noticed in my shashur-bari, how earnestly my Ma-in-law, a WB born and brought up lady would be preparing her menu plans for these 4-5 days, starting from payesh and ending on various puli pithe, malpua, shoro chakhli etc. One thing which is common at both the end is the urge to keep traditions alive and to pass it on to next generations.

Now to be honest I can sustain without these high calorie sweet things and this goes alike with my DD and DH.But since it’s about keeping the traditions alive and trying to connect with ones roots, here I am in a foreign land making all these puli and pithe during Poush-Parbon.Prior to Poush Sankranti , may be two days ago, my ma-in-law told me to make some sweets-payesh, bhaja pithe and savoury shoro chakhli , for she also gave me a rough estimate and recipe procedure for making them.

I thought perhaps may be, we picked up where we last dropped it ,and the very next day I was into making payesh, dudh puli, bhaja pithe and patishapta.I have never made dudh puli myself, this is the first time that I have to don the cap. I was bit nervous and excited both, and I am bound to feel that, but I felt satisfied that somehow I was able to pull it off well. Seeing and sensing the satisfied faces at the dinning table, my enthusiasm was revived and then I also soaked some mong dal and brown rice to make shoro chakhli, and then next day on poush Sankranti, wet grinded them and made shoro chakhli for dinner.

Shoro chakhli as you know all is quite similar with pessarattu as both are made with mong dal - whole/green ones and the yellow ones both and also don’t require fermentation time. One can grind them,mix the batter and start making shoro chakhli straight ahead just like dosa.I have used brown rice this time instead of plain rice or basmati rice.

Here is bhaja pithe and shoro chakhli.How to make shoro chakhli, here is the recipe......

Then there were some patishapta and bhaja pithe to get along with it as well.

Dudh puli or the rice flour dumpling cooked in milk , is a very de-glamorized sweet, plain thickened milk and rice flour Mexican empanadas sorry I mean sheddo puli dunked into it, but one bite into it, and all the flavors of cooked coconut-noton gur/jaggery-rice-thickened milk gets bursting in.Add in saffron to the thickened milk, and  it elevates the flavor two step upwards.

Here is how we made puli pithe- one batch, I deep fried them and stored in air tight containers to be relished with it’s own pace and the other batch I happened to steam cook them to make dudh puli with it.

now to the recipe

Dudh puli pithe- Rice flour dumplings in milk

Recipe requirements

For the dough to make shells

• 1 cup of rice flour
• ¼ cup of all purpose flour/Maida
• ¼ cup of fine semolina
• Two pinch of baking soda
• ½ tsp of fennel seeds
• ½ tsp of sugar

For the filling/pur

• 2 cups of coconut- fresh or desiccated coconut
• Gur/jaggery – about 60 -80 gm or as per taste 

For the dudh- milk

• 4-5 cups of whole milks
• Few strands of saffron
• ½ tsp of cardamom powder

Method

• In a microwave safe bowl- add in about a cup of water and the jaggery pieces.
• Cook in microwave at full power for 2 mints.Take out and mix well with a spoon. Repeat till all the jaggery is dissolved and you get liquid jaggery.You can even use liquid notun gur/jaggery or sugar what ever is available to you.
• Now add in fresh scarped coconut or desiccated coconut. Put the entire content again in microwave and cook at full power for 2 mints. Take out and mix well with a spoon.repeat this 3- 4 times till the mixture becomes somewhat semi-dry. Add in 2 tsp of ghee to this and again put into microwave for 1 mint. When the gur/jaggery mixture starts collecting well and has become somewhat dry, stop microwaving. You can even do this on stove-top, I found working in microwave is easy and less time consuming.
• Now warm up a cup of water. Mix the dry ingredients- rice flour, flour/Maida, semolina/sooji.Add in pinch of baking soda. Add in fennel seeds. And knead the dry mixture ingredients into semi soft dough with the lukewarm water and splash of cooking oil.This time though I skipped oil all together.
• Divide the dough into equal portions or small balls.this much will yield 14-16 puli pithe approx. Cover with a damp cloth so that it doesn't get dry. Roll each ball slightly with the help of rolling pin to about a 6-7 cm disc just like you will roll luchi with some oil...Be careful and do this with gentle hands as the dough is soft, it may rupture.I happen to deep fry half batch and rest of them were steam cooked.
• Now scoop a tbs of coconut-jaggery mixture or the “narkol pak “-in between and fold the sides to seal it well. Now be creative and make different shapes if you wish to do so. I have made them like Chandrapuli /crescent shape just like gujiya or pyarki.
• Steam and cook them for about 15- 20 mints. I have done a post on how to make sheddo puli.At that time made it with grounded rice but luckily this time though had fresh supply of rice flour so that made great change to the texture of the shell for puli pithe.
• Meanwhile put 4-5 cups of whole milk to boil. Reduce the flame and let it simmer till it reduces to half or becomes little bit thick, but not thick as in khoya.Add in ½ tsp of cardamom powder and few saffron strands.
• Transfer the steamed/sheddo puli to this thick milk. Cook further 2-3 mints. Stop the cooking and let it covered. Let puli pithe rest in the thickened milk and absorb the flavor of saffron and cardamom for about 1-2 hr. Dudh puli is ready.
• If you wish you many even chill and refrigerate or relish it straight now. But trust me the next day, the flavor is enhanced and puli is much softer. I don’t get noton gur/nolen gur/khejur gur here easily. That was the last stock I had, and in case you can find Sri Lankan Palm jaggery –that tastes quite similar to noton gur if I am not wrong.

Other poush parbon recipes

Noton Gur'er Payesh

Patishapta

sheddo puli 

And here are some of the snow pictures…

We were out in snow........

Snow art in the car park- the zig-zag cuts made by cars while steering along in the car park.

"Har ek dali, har-ek patta,

Barf se gili, har-ek zarra,

Kuch dhowan, kuch khawab

Kuch hosh, aur Kuch madhoshi

Aur hai ek lamhe ka tahrav ".........

"Woh Kagaj Ki kashti , Woh barish ka Pani" ......only difference is  -walking in the snow with snow sledge..This kid was having a great day out in snow..........

and with sibling - Let me take you for a joy ride in snow..........

Enjoy snow if you are under it's radar,stay warm and protected....

Happy Cooking Friends......