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Patishapta Pithe

A traditional Bengali sweet, much like crepes. These are thin crepes made of flour, semolina and rice flour and stuffed with coconut and jaggery. Recipe Author: Madhushree
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Course Appetizers, Vegetarian
Cuisine Bengali
Servings 25 nos approx

Ingredients
  

for the filling

  • 2 cups freshly grated coconut
  • 3/4 cups grated gur or jaggery I used fresh gur made from dates, what we call patali gur in Bengali. (see notes)
  • 2 tbsp milk powder my mother's secret ingredient to make it extra sticky
  • 1 tbsp Ghee

for the batter

  • 1 cup Flour
  • 1/2 cup semolina
  • 1 tsp gobindobhog rice flour optional. Essentially for the fragrance
  • 2 tbsp Ghee
  • 1/2 cup nolen gur liquid date palm jaggery
  • 2 cups Milk

other ingredients

  • 3 tbsp Ghee
  • 3 tbsp nolen gur for garnish or drizzling from top

Instructions
 

Making the stuffing

  • In a heavy bottomed frying pan or kadai, start by heating the ghee and adding the grated coconut. After frying for a minute on medium to low flame, add the jaggery. If you do not have jaggery add sugar. Keep stirring till the gur or the sugar melts and they all bind together. It takes about 5 to 6 minutes and then add the milk powder.
  • Again keep stirring for half a minute and turn off the flame. Too much cooking will over caramelize the sugar and burn it. So keep a check over the flame and once everything is sticky, turn off the heat.
  • Keep it aside to cool down a little bit. Then rub your hands with ghee and then start shaping the stuffing. Take a heaped tsp of the filling in the palm of your hand and shape it into a thin cylinder about 2 inches long. Keep them aside on a plate.

Making the batter and then the Patishapta

  • In a mixing bowl, add the flour, semolina and the rice flour. Make a well in the centre and add the ghee and the nolen gur and slowly add the milk while stirring. You may or may not need the entire two cups of milk. Or sometimes you may need a little more than two cups of milk. The batter should not be thick as pancakes and not too runny also. It should coat the back of your spoon and should be like a crepe batter.
  • Take a frying pan and rub a little bit of ghee on the pan. When it is hot, take a small ladle of the batter and pour it in the centre while using the back of your ladle, spread the batter into a round shape about 3 inches in diameter. Keep the flame at a low and cover with a lid for a minute for the batter to dry.
  • When the batter has dried, add one of the coconut cylinders at one end and using your fingers and the spatula, make it into a roll and press gently when completely rolled to seal the end.
  • Take it out and place it in a serving dish. Repeat the process with the entire batter.
  • Serve it with a drizzle of nolen gur. You can have it hot or at room temperature. In winters, you can keep it outside for a couple of days but in summers, you will have to put it in the refrigerator.

Notes

  1. Substitute with sugar if you cannot find jaggery.
  2. If you do not find gobindobhog rice flour, use regular rice flour
  3. If you are left with some extra batter, keep it refrigerated and either make some more filling or simply make crepes with it and add whatever filling you want and have.
  4. It is difficult to say the exact number of patishaptas because it depends on the diameter of the crepe.