RCI Bengal: Patishapta -- Pancakes with Coconut Filling

Happy Ugadi everyone! Traditionally my amma is around for us to gather together and celebrate Kannada ugadi with lots of good food and fun. Unfortunately my mom is in India at the moment and we are left to our own devices to celebrate. My first real taste of Bengali sweets in West Bengal was at Bimala Sweet Shop in Kharagpur (KGP). I went to KGP to visit my cousin and aunty. You know how you imagine a city to be after many years of hearing about it? Well, KGP was nothing like I imagined. It was quiet, lush and green (I went in September) and had the universal college town feel to it. The houses had rambling vines of creepers on the fences and there was not that much car traffic in town. Mostly scooters and bicycles. My cousin let me borrow her bicycle and we spent many afternoons cycling to and from various shops and one that stands out in memory is Bimalas. I probably ate 3 to 4 rasmalais everyday there. I had no care in the world about my waist or caloric count. It was pure heavenly creamy bliss. Scaring all the engineers at IIT with my wild outfits and crazy cycling was the second hobby. Good times!

Anyway, why I went down memory lane was to remind myself of the food choice for RCI Bengal being hosted by lovely Sandeepa over at Bong Mom's Cookbook. I wanted to create a sweet for Ugadi, something simple, something rich, and most importantly, no major grinding of course. :)

I got the recipe for Patishapta in my one and only Bangla Cookbook -- Bangla Ranna by Minakshie DasGupta. I was drawn to it for several reasons. One I had all the ingredients at home, two, it reminded me of Kai Holige (sweet poran poli, similar but different) and finally, I realized after tasting it it was very similar to the street vendors version of coconut pancakes in Southern Thailand! So for this special New Years day, here is some bengali sweets.

Patishapta Recipe

For the batter:

• 1 Cup Flour
• 1/2 Cup Rice Flour
• 250 ml Milk
• 1/8 tsp soda bicarbonate

Mix all of the above and let it rest for about 1/2 hour.

For the filling:

• 1 cup shredded coconut (I used frozen)
• 1/2 cup condensed milk
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup almond slivers
• 1 tsp ghee

Take a saute pan and heat to medium. Add ghee and saute raisins and almonds till raisins puff up golden and almond slivers slightly brown. Add frozen coconut to the raisins and nuts as well as condensed milk and let the entire filling come together into one thick mass. ~ 5 minutes. Take care not to burn the coconut. Take it out of the pan and let it cool.

To put it all together:Take a 6 inch non-stick pan and grease liberally with some ghee. Take couple tablespoons of the batter and dollop into the pan. Spread out the batter till its thin (almost crepe or dosa like). Let it cook and brown on one side. Add 1 large heaping teaspoon on top of the pancake and fold the pancake over to cover the filling. Set aside. Make rest of the pancakes with remaining batter and filling. Make sure to continue to grease the pan between pancakes.

To serve: Serve warm or room temperature with additional raisins and almonds as garnish. For even more sweet stickiness, you can drizzle some leftover condensed milk over the pancakes.

Verdict? My husband and kids loved this simple sweet treat. S mentioned that it reminded him of his grandma's Patishaptas. Thats a compliment for sure. Next time, I will add some cardamom powder to the filling. I missed it for sure. Weird that the recipe in the book didn't call for any!

Asha had the same idea for dessert for RCI Bengal! But even though we used the same book/author, the versions of Patishapta is different! How interesting.

Thank you Sandeepa for hosting and allowing me to contribute!