Everyone loves the smell of ripe palm fruit (tal). This nutritious seasonal fruit is a favourite of many, and at this time of year palm pitha and payesh are made in almost every home. But before making any dish, the pulp has to be extracted from the ripe fruit, which is very hard work.

Many people cannot make palm pitha and payesh at home for this reason, but there is a very easy solution. Keep the following to hand: ripe palm fruit, a knife, hand gloves, a large bowl, clean water and a strainer.

First peel the skin off the ripe palm fruit thoroughly with the knife. Then separate the seeds inside. In one litre of clean water, squeeze and knead the seeds by hand to release the pulp. Do this for every seed, so that all the pulp goes into the bowl of water.

Next strain the watery pulp and cook it on the stove for 15-20 minutes until thick. Each palm fruit has three seeds. Now mix sugar into the cooked pulp.

That's it, your palm pulp is ready. You can now use it to make pitha, payesh and all kinds of tasty dishes. If you like, you can also keep it all year round: store the pulp in a lidded bowl in the deep freezer and take it out whenever you want to make pitha or payesh.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.