Dudh Puli

Winter is the season for making different types of Pithe (Traditional Bengali Sweet) using fresh date plum jaggery. We make pithe using rice flour, date plum jaggery, coconut and sooji as the main ingredients. Depending on the recipe there are many other ingredients also which we use for making pithe. Sankranti is here, and it’s a ritual to make Pithe-Payesh in every Bengali household. My mom was considered a master within our family when it’s come to Pithe making. My Pithe making skill doesn’t match her and it sucks actually. But my mom has lots of faith in me and I don’t know why she thought that I could make perfect Dudh Puli if I try, maybe it’s due to her blessings I passed today while making Dudh Puli for the first time. 🙂 I WhatsApp the picture to Ma and she screamed with joy that I made the Pulis look so good! Really! I too was happy because Ma was. I wouldn’t share the recipe with you all if it’s not an old one. This recipe belongs to my Mom, she learnt this from my maternal grandmother, so it’s an old family recipe and it doesn’t matter if I tried this only once. Ma made this umpteen times. It’s easier to make than the popular version of Dudh Puli where the puli made with rice flour mixture and filled with coconut+jaggery filling and later cooked in milk. We totally loved this Dudh Puli. If you’re new into pithe making and looking for an easy recipe then you can try this.

Dudh Puli/Semolina-Coconut dumplings in Sweet Milk

Serves: 5-6

Ingredients

For Puli

• Semolina/Sooji/Rawa- 200g
• Coconut- ½ of one whole coconut (grated)
• Granulated sugar- 150g
• Milk- ¼ cup (approx.)
• All purpose flour/Maida (optional)

For Sweet Milk

• Full-fat milk- 800ml
• Jaggery (Use Patali or Nolen gur only)- 200g or adjust as per your taste
• Bay leaf- 2
• Green cardamom- 4-5 (lightly crushed)

Method

Making of Puli

In a deep frying pan/kadai (non-stick preferably) dry roast sooji on a medium flame for 3-4 minutes. Don’t roast them golden, sooji will change its colour just a bit, roast until then. Now add sugar and grated coconut into this, keep cooking and stirring on medium flame. Sugar will start melting slowly and the mixture will start to change its colour. Now add milk, mix and cook. Take out some mixture at this stage and start rolling using your fingers. If the mixture holds its shape and the sugar granules melted away completely then it’s done.
This part is tricky if you feel that your puli mixture is drying up and sugar granules are still visible add a little milk, add milk carefully because if you ended up adding too much milk the whole thing will become a halwa, so care should be taken at this stage. The perfect puli mixture would be sticky with soft visible sooji grains and no trace of sugar granules, this whole process may take 12-15 minutes of cooking.

Remove from heat; transfer puli mixture on a plate. Sprinkle some maida on top of the mixture, it’s optional but helps to make the shape of puli perfect. Grease your plums with little ghee/clarified butter and start making puli immediately. Involve others to help you at this as you can only make perfect pulis with warm mixture. Make Pulis in 1” size lengthwise using your fingers and plums. Make the cylindrical shape or make them into half moon shape, as you like. As these were smaller in size I preferred to make them in the cylindrical shape. After making pulis using all the mixture, keep them aside.

Making of Sweet Milk

Break the jaggery in small chunks. Keep aside.

Take a deep bottomed, wide mouth pan. Pour the milk in it. Boil on a high flame. Once it boils, reduce the heat. Add green cardamoms and bay leaves. Keep boiling the milk on a low flame until it comes to ¾ in quantity. Now add jaggery, stir and cook until it melts completely into the milk. Check sweetness, if you prefer more sweet taste you can add more jaggery at this stage.

Now gently add pulis, just give a slow stir to mix them with the milk. Switch off the flame. Let Dudh Puli seat for some time before serving. You can have it warm or serve cold as you like.

Note:

After adding pulis into the milk, no need to cook them further. Otherwise, pulis may break and melt into the milk.