Patishapta (Sweet, stuffed Pancakes) | Five Variations !

As promised, it's Monday and here I am with a recipe, simple & humble enough to impress anyone. Patishapta, as we call it in Bengali, is nothing but a sweet pancake stuffed with filling preferably prepared with coconut. Out of the many sweet delicacies, this is the one which I believe is prepared in every Bengali household during Sankranti. Probably, this is one of the many dishes which my mom is expert in & I bet no one can stop just eating one.

The ingredients are quite simple. I am personally fond of the coconut & jaggery stuffing. But there can be so many variations in it. You can just go creative and make new version of your own.Sharing some which I believe to be super tasty. So, the disclaimer here - it IS a lengthy post :)

Step 1: Prepare the pancake batter!
We need:

• All purpose flour/Maida 
• Rice Flour
• Semolina/Sooji/Rawa
• Milk
• Sugar
• Salt
• Baking Powder

Although the process is simple but it is tricky at the same time. If the batter is not proper, the pancakes can't be folded. The key to the perfect Patishapta is undoubtedly perfect batter. So, start by dumping everything on a large sieve. Add Maida & Rice flour in 1:1 ratio. If you take 1 cup Maida then add half a cup of Semolina & half a cup of sugar. Here we won't be adding that much of sugar & don't want this to be too sweet as these are going to be stuffed with much sweeter filling. Also more of sugar will make the pancakes difficult to fold in as they will stick to the tawa. So, the quantity of sugar here can be reduced as per the taste. Add a pinch of salt and 1 tea-spoon of Baking powder. Sieve everything properly on a large bowl. Now add milk slowly in it - not necessarily full fat. Simultaneously keep mixing the batter so as not to form any lump. The batter should be flowing consistency, not too thick not too liquid. And we are done with Step 1.

Step 2: Prepare the filling!

So, here are some options of filling that goes very well with it. Whichever option you try just try keeping the filling dry but moist.

1. Coconut & Jaggery

• Grated Coconut
• Jaggery - The one which is made from Dates (Khejur er Gur)
• Ghee (optional)

Start by melting the jaggery. Mix equal quantities of jaggery and water and start boiling it. Keep breaking the jaggery pieces as it boils until the whole mixture is liquid. Sieve the mixture to get rid of impurities. Be careful as the mixture will be too hot. Keep aside. 

In a pan, add grated coconut and jaggery mix. Adjust the quantity of jaggery as per your taste. Start heating the pan. At this stage, you can add a small quantity of ghee to make it non-sticky but that's optional. However, the coconut will start giving up oil as the mixture heats up. Keep stiring on low heat until the whole thing comes together and becomes a sticky mix. Transfer the mixture in a bowl & let it cool.

2. Kheer & Dry Fruits

• Milk/Condensed milk/Milk Solids or Mawa
• Sugar
• Dry fruits of choice
• Small Cardamom Powder (Elaichi)

Chop the dry fruits into smaller pieces or put everything in a grinder for a min to get a coarse but small pieces. Here if you are starting with plain milk, start boiling it in a pan & keep it on low flame. Keep stiring until it gets reduced to 1/4th of the quantity. Here condensed milk or Mawa comes handy & you can save quite a lot of time & effort. Once the milk is ready, add sugar as per taste, half a tea-spoon of Elaichi powder & dry fruits mix. Once sugar melts & everything comes together, remove it from heat & allow to cool. Make sure to transfer to a bowl to avoid burning the mixture.

3. Carrot

• Grated Carrot
• Milk solids (Mawa)
• Sugar
• Ghee
• Small Cardamom Powder (Elaichi)

Heat a tablespoon of Ghee in a pan. Add little Elaichi powder to infuse the flavour. Add grated carrot, sugar, Mawa. Mix until the mawa & sugar melts. Everything will come together and will not be sticking to the pan. Keep aside, cool. If you don't get Mawa, substitute with milk powder. In this case, lessen the amount of sugar.

4. Coconut & Sugar

• Grated Coconut
• Sugar
• Small Cardamom Powder (Elaichi) for flavouring.

This is the easiest. Mix everything in a pan. Heat until the mix is sticky and comes together.

5. Choco-Coco

• Grated Coconut
• Grated Chocolate/Coco powder
• Milk - a little
• Sugar

This is by far a different variation. Avoid sugar if using sweetened chocolate. 

Mix everything, heat and follow the same process.

Step 3: Assemble!

• Non-stick Tawa
• White oil or ghee
• Tissue paper
• Ladle & Spatula

Heat a Non-stick tawa. Put a tablespoon of white oil/ghee and spread it properly. Sprinkle some water and wipe out the excess oil with tissue paper. Mix the batter again and put a ladle full of it on the pan. Spread it. This should not be necessarily round but spread as much possible. Let it cook on medium flame. As it cooks, you will see round hollow spots on it - this is the time you should be adding the filling. Put a spoon full of filling on one side of the pancake and start rolling it over. Flatten it with a spatula and cook on both the sides. You can keep on adding little bit of ghee or oil from sides if needed but don't overdo it. Oiling the Tawa is not needed every time, may be after two-three pancakes and repeat the same step of sprinkling water & wiping off oil.

So, this was my take on one of the traditional Sankranti recipes, I hope you like it!
Do let me know in comments. Stay tuned for more :)