Once the new paddy is brought home in late autumn (Hemanta), village households across Bengal start making pitha and payesh. Mita Azhar gives four such recipes in Samakal, built on rice flour, coconut, date palm jaggery and milk.
Date palm jaggery payesh: 1 litre milk, 100 g aromatic polao rice washed and drained, 150 to 200 g date palm jaggery, one or two bay leaves, one or two pieces of cinnamon, three cardamoms, and raisins and chopped nuts. Boil the milk with the bay leaf, cinnamon and cardamom until it reduces by half, add the rice and keep stirring on low heat. Melt the jaggery separately in a little water and let it cool slightly. When the rice is cooked and the payesh thick, turn the heat right down, stir in the jaggery slowly and finish with raisins and nuts.
Tel pitha: 2 cups rice flour, 1 cup jaggery, lukewarm water, a pinch of salt and 2 cups oil. Thicken the jaggery over heat and cool it. Knead the rice flour with warm water and salt, mix in the jaggery to a thick batter and leave it covered for a while. Drop ladlefuls into hot oil, turn when they puff up and lift out when reddish brown.
Coconut puli: for the filling, stir 2 cups grated coconut with 1 cup jaggery over medium heat, add half a teaspoon of ground cardamom and cinnamon, and take it off once sticky. For the dough, add 1.5 cups rice flour and half a cup of flour to salted boiling water, cover for 5 minutes, then knead it soft and smooth. Roll small balls into rounds, fill, fold into half moons, press the edges shut and fry on medium heat until light golden.
Kheer patishapta: thicken 1 litre milk, stir in sugar, a little cardamom and 2 tablespoons rice flour until it becomes kheer, then cool. Mix 1 cup rice flour, 1 cup flour, half a cup semolina, half a cup sugar or jaggery and a little salt with milk or water into a thin batter and rest it 20 to 30 minutes. Spread a ladleful on a hot greased griddle, cover for 5 to 10 seconds, lay a line of kheer down the middle when one side is set, roll it up and lift off when lightly browned.
Photo: Ibrahim Husain Meraj / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: Samakal
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