Nothing Elementary about Pithe
The new movie of Sherlock Holmes is released. Friends who know me ask at least once, whether I have seen it or not. Well I haven’t.
Neither do I think I want to. Sherlock Holmes has long been my favourite character. A while before I started blushing about Mr Darcy, or Rhett Butler. Seeing Jeremy Brett play him to such perfection was a dream come true. The present movie does not give me the certainty of the unexpected, as does the other dramatization or the books. And to think such a character was not the favourite of the creator. When I read Arthur Canon Doyle’s biography, I was surprised to find he did not want to be remembered for the Baker Street’s most famous person but rather as a historical writer. How could he be so brilliant at something he did not want to do. How could he breathe such life into Not only Sherlock Holmes or Watson but the intelligent evil Prof Moriatery? Anyways, that is my lopsided reason or not watching Robert Downing Jr in Sherlock Holmes. While on this topic I recalled a quote I read in one of the Sherlock Holmes Casebooks. There Arthur Canon Doyle voiced the opinion that mind is like an attic and we should keep it clean of information which we do not need.
I do not quite agree with him. If not for the myriad memories in my ‘attic’ I would be a lonely person indeed. And i would miss things. As I have gone ahead with life; things have changed. Trying to keep pace, I find myself forgetting about a lot of these. Few I tenaciously cling to others I just let go. Still it does feel as if an era is just missing us by. In the times of fridges and cooking conveniences I forget how difficult it must have been cooking 30 years back. I am not actually saying that we need to change back..But just remembering them are good food for thought; well at least to me.
There are so many dishes which are rarely cooked even by my mother, though at one point they were common. Pithe is one of those. It is basically something prepared with Powder rice as the main ingredient. It comes in various forms, shapes and sizes. The ones that I can remember are puli pithe, chushi pithe, patishapta pithe, chetle pithe. Puli and chushi pithe are very time consuming ones. When I granny cooked it, she didn’t look at anything else in the kitchen. It was a time consuming task. Her deft hands would mould the puli, or would whizz by over the rice dough to make chushi, very similar to the haldiram sev, just imagine them broken down into much smaller sizes. Oh! Its impossible to explain. If I manage to cook it someday I will put a picture in. Anyways when my mouth waters for this, i cannot indulge. But I do manage one shortcut one, which is patishapta pithe. This is much easier version, hurriedly made and quickly finished.
The new movie of Sherlock Holmes is released. Friends who know me ask at least once, whether I have seen it or not. Well I haven’t.
Neither do I think I want to. Sherlock Holmes has long been my favourite character. A while before I started blushing about Mr Darcy, or Rhett Butler. Seeing Jeremy Brett play him to such perfection was a dream come true. The present movie does not give me the certainty of the unexpected, as does the other dramatization or the books. And to think such a character was not the favourite of the creator. When I read Arthur Canon Doyle’s biography, I was surprised to find he did not want to be remembered for the Baker Street’s most famous person but rather as a historical writer. How could he be so brilliant at something he did not want to do. How could he breathe such life into Not only Sherlock Holmes or Watson but the intelligent evil Prof Moriatery? Anyways, that is my lopsided reason or not watching Robert Downing Jr in Sherlock Holmes. While on this topic I recalled a quote I read in one of the Sherlock Holmes Casebooks. There Arthur Canon Doyle voiced the opinion that mind is like an attic and we should keep it clean of information which we do not need.
I do not quite agree with him. If not for the myriad memories in my ‘attic’ I would be a lonely person indeed. And i would miss things. As I have gone ahead with life; things have changed. Trying to keep pace, I find myself forgetting about a lot of these. Few I tenaciously cling to others I just let go. Still it does feel as if an era is just missing us by. In the times of fridges and cooking conveniences I forget how difficult it must have been cooking 30 years back. I am not actually saying that we need to change back..But just remembering them are good food for thought; well at least to me.
There are so many dishes which are rarely cooked even by my mother, though at one point they were common. Pithe is one of those. It is basically something prepared with Powder rice as the main ingredient. It comes in various forms, shapes and sizes. The ones that I can remember are puli pithe, chushi pithe, patishapta pithe, chetle pithe. Puli and chushi pithe are very time consuming ones. When I granny cooked it, she didn’t look at anything else in the kitchen. It was a time consuming task. Her deft hands would mould the puli, or would whizz by over the rice dough to make chushi, very similar to the haldiram sev, just imagine them broken down into much smaller sizes. Oh! Its impossible to explain. If I manage to cook it someday I will put a picture in. Anyways when my mouth waters for this, i cannot indulge. But I do manage one shortcut one, which is patishapta pithe. This is much easier version, hurriedly made and quickly finished.
Ingredients
For the pancake
Rice flour – 1 cup
Plain Flour- ¼ cup
Semolina – 3 tbsp
Condensed milk – ½ cup
Milk – about 1 cup
For the filling
Grated coconut ( frozen can be used as well) – 2 cups
Jaggery – 1 cup
Cardamon – 6/7 cloves
Method
Put the coconut in a frying pan and when heated add the jaggery to it.
Allow it to melt , all the while stirring the mixture. It will reach a consistency where the coconut starts binding together Now add the cardamom powder and let it cool.
Mix all the ingredients for the pancake. The consistency of the mixture should be about the same as dosa batter. Should not be very runny...while should not be so thick that tilting the frying pan has not effect!!!.
Heat a skillet or frying pan, add slight oil. Pour in one ladle of the batter and let it cook on one side. My granny used to flip this to other side. I don’t. Reason being I am afraid of losing the perfect round shape and end up with remains of what could have been a good patishapta. So I let it cook that extra couple second that ensures that the side facing up is not raw.
Now spread a bit of the coconut mixture in a straight line, very similar to what is called a chord in geometry. Carefully roll over the pancake over this mixture. Sometimes adding a bit of oil (though not desirable) on the sides allows easy riddance from the frying pan.
Serve it with melted patali gur or even kheer or rabri.
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