Poush Parbon er Pati Shapta

India being a predominantly agrarian country the harvesting season is joyfully celebrated during the months of Poush-Magh and Falgun (January to February), the festival being known by different names in different regions. In Bengal the harvesting festival is known as Poush Parbon (Winter Festival), poush being the name of the month.

This festival also celebrates Makar Sankranti or Poush Sankranti — marking the sun's passage from Capricorn to Aquarius
This festival is also known as Pithey Parbon in Bengal, pithey being a sweet made with basic agrarian ingredients of the region like rice, date palm etc. .There are several varieties of Pithey known as Gokul Pithey, Ashkey Pithey, Shajer Pithey etc. Along with this, sweets like Pati Shapta, rice-flour crepes filled with khoya and coconut stuffing, Soru Chakli and many more are also made. A very nice article on this festival and the variety of sweets made can be found here

PatiShapta -- Crepes filled with a coconut kheer stuffing

Though Poush Parban is more of a rural festival, urban households in Bengal celebrate it too, the emphasis here being on the food galore rather the pithey galore.

My baba’s side i.e my paternal grandparents house were a bit of a radical and didn’t celebrate poush parbon with much fervor but at my Dida’s house or my Maternal grandparents house all three days of sankrati were celebrated. I vaguely remember my Dida going around the house tying fresh hay to all the door handles in the house. She would also make varieties of pithey, the first batch being Ashkey pithey. She would store the first batch of pithey in an earthenware container as an symbolic offering to gods and later immerse it in the river.

With time however this has changed, even my Ma does not go around tying hay to door knobs and does not make all the 8-10 varieties of pithey on this day. She does make Puli Payesh, pati sapta and gokul pithey though. My Ma-in-law make sthis amazing Gokul Pithey and next time I am going to learn from her. This time I made Pati Shapta, rice flour crepes filled with stuffing of coconut & khoya, which I learnt from Ma. Traditionally I should have used Khejur Gur or Date Palm Jaggery but because of my khejur gur ration I used sugar instead

Ok so heres the recipe. This is going to be a piece of cake for all my friends from Southern part of India. In fact you guys can give me inputs on how to make this better as this was my maiden effort.

Pati Shapta

What You Need

For the pur or stuffing

Grated Coconut ~ 3 cup
Khoa ~ 12 oz
Sugar ~ 1 cup. If you can use Date Palm Jaggery that would be best

For Batter for Crepe

Maida or All Purpose Flour ~ 3 cup
Sooji or Semolina ~ ½ cup
Rice Flour ~ ¼ cup.
Milk ~ 4 cups + a little more. As you make the batter, if you feel the batter is not thin enough to spread out add more. Note: the batter needs to be really thin and you may need more milk for this. Ideally the batter should spread easily on the griddle when poured

1/4 Cup of sugar

How I Did It

For the Pur or Stuffing

Take 3 cups of grated coconut. Fresh is better but I used frozen. Microwave the frozen one, to make it soft and fluffy
In the Kadai or Frying Pan mix the grated coconut with 1 cup sugar and mix with hand, pressing a little, so that The coconut will become slightly moist because of the sugar. This step is before the pan is put on the stove.
Next Microwave the khoya to make it a little soft
Put the Kadhai/Frying pan with coconut mix in it on the stove and stir.
Add the khoya and keep on stirring till the mixture turns a light brown and is sticky. At this point the mix should not dis-integrate but should look like a light brown slightly sticky granular substance. It took me almost 30 mins to do this


For the Crepe

In a big bowl add,

3 cup pf Maida/ All Purpose Flour

1/2 cup of Sooji

1/4 cup of Fine Rice Flour. If you have store bought rice flour you may need to grind it once more in your dry grinder to make it fine. 

1/4 cup of Sugar

Add 4 cups of Milk, do not add all the milk all at once, add it as you mix so you get an idea as to the consistency of the batter. You may need to add a little more of milk or water depending on the batter thickness. The batter should be a little more liquid than pancake batter. Make sure the batter has no lumps.

Cover the batter and set it aside for couple of hours to rest.

Heat a Frying Pan and smear a little oil/ghee on it. Just a brush of oil or ghee is fine.

Take a ladle full of batter (about quarter cup) and pour it on the Frying Pan and tilting the pan and moving the mixture with back of the ladle, evenly distribute the batter in a circle . You have to do this quick before the mix sets.

Once you feel the bottom side of the crepe is cooked, put the stuffing lengthwise towards one of the edge of the crepe. It is the same with savory or sweet stuffing.

Fold the crepe into a roll and lightly press it down. Give it a minute to get the brown spots, if you like it that way. Take it out on a plate and start with the next,

For serving
Drizzle the crepes with condensed milk and serve hot. Ideally my Ma use to thicken the milk, sweeten it and pour it over the crepes. I cut the method short with condensed milk

What I learnt
While using rice flour you have to be careful to make the batter a little more thinner and the crepe more thin, only then it remains soft even when cold. My batter in this case should have been more thin, a consistency that would spread easily on the griddle by tilting the griddle around


Updated on Jan 14th, 2020:

Finally, I have got hang of the Rice flour in patishapta

Make Batter

Rice Flour (from Indian stores) -- 1 Cup
Maida or AP Flour - 1/2 Cup
Sooji or Fine Rawa -- 1/4th Cup

Milk -- 2&1/2 Cups at room temperature

Sugar -- 3 Tbsp

Make a smooth batter by whisking the above ingredients, make sure there are no lumps. The batter should be thinner than pancake batter.

Make the Crepes

Take a small non-stick crepe pan. My omeltte pan serves the purpose.

Brush the pan with a few drops of oil. Raise the gas heat to high.

Take little less than 1/4th Cup of batter and pour on the center of the pan, quickly swirling the pan to spread the batter.

Now lower heat to medium and cook the crepe until edges start turning light brown. Lift the edges to see if the crepe is developing brown spots.

Put the stuffing towards the edge and wrap the crepe around it. Remove and serve hot

Get this recipe in my Book coming out soon. Check this blog for further updates.