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.