Chitoi Pitha Recipe – Bengali Steamed Pancakes for Holiday Season

Till I was 16 we lived in Shillong and schools there would have a 3-month long winter break at that time. So around the second week of December, we would come to Kolkata for 6-8 weeks. Christmas, New Year, Sankranti, and sometimes Saraswati puja, we would celebrate at my grandparent’s house.

Sankranti was one of its kind. Two days prior, my grandad (dadu) would get a couple of earthen molds or sanchh from the market. My grandma would soak them in water for a few hours and then let them dry in the sun. The day before, Maa would soak a good 5 kgs of parboiled rice and the shil nora’s (rustic and indigenously used mortar and pestle) would be scrubbed clean. And on the day of Sankranti, around late afternoon after the morning puja and lunch, it was a complete war zone. Dida would recruit a couple of ladies for the heavy lifting. They would arrive and start grinding the soaked rice to an absolute fine consistency on the Shil Nora. No electric devices here, mind you!

Chitoi Pitha Recipe – Make at Home

Chitoi Pitha (Bengali Steamed Pancakes)

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• Author: Soma Sengupta
• Prep Time: 20 minutes
• Cook Time: 15 minutes
• Total Time: 35 minutes
• Yield: 8 1x

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Description

A traditional and extremely well guarded recipe from my family using the very seasonal Nolen Gur, date palm jaggery and freshly harvested rice for the Bengali festival of Poush Sankranti. Try this Chitoi Pitha Recipe at home now.

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Scale 1x2x3x

Ingredients

• 1 cup Parboiled Rice
• 2.5 cup Water
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 liters Full Fat Milk
• 3/4 cup Sugar
• 50 grams Date Palm Jaggery (Preferably Nolen Gur)
• 2 tbsp Vegetable Oil
• 1/4 cup Grated Coconut
• 1 bay leaf

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Instructions

1. Wash and soak rice in the water overnight.
2. Grind to a fine paste almost the consistency of a pancake. Add a little water if necessary.
3. Chitoi pithe is traditionally made in clay molds. But you can also do the same in small kadhais or frying pans.
4. Heat the mold and grease it with a small paper towel dipped in the oil. You have to grease the mold after every batch, so you need the oil even if it looks too much.
5. Add the batter and cover it. You will see small bubbles. The pithe gets cooked in about 2-3 mins in all depending on the size of the mold. If required flip and cook a little on the other side too. Remove.
6. You could enjoy with grated coconut and nolen gur(liquid) at this stage.
7. Alternatively, we could step it up too. In a big wide mouthed pan, heat the milk along with the bay leaf. Bring it to a boil and then let it simmer over medium flame and reduce to half it’s original volume. This takes about 20 mins and a careful eye to avoid the milk from burning.
8. Now add the sugar and stir for bout 5-6 mins until it fully dissolves.
9. Add the cooked chitoi pithes and simmer for another 3-4 mins. Remove from flame.
10. Immediately add the gur (jaggery). Stir to dissolve it. Set aside for 10 mins before serving.
11. Garnish with grated coconut and serve.

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• Category: Dessert
• Method: Steaming
• Cuisine: Indian

Keywords: Chitoi Pitha Recipe

Dida would get the clay stove going and when it was ready, she would perch herself on a low wooden stool or the pinri and the frenzy began. Dida swiftly pouring the batter in the well-oiled hot sanchh, the batter would bubble up, she would then cover it with a lid to cook them and all it took was a couple of minutes for them to be un-molded. On the side, Maa would be grating coconut and getting that ready alongside an earthen pot of the finest Nolen Gur.

This would go on for a good 2-3 hours with several rounds of tea being served in between and a lot of storytelling especially Dida reminiscing her Sankranti and pithe puli memories from her Bangladesh days. And before we knew, us kids would be summoned for dinner and it was a eat as many as you can “chitoi pitha” dinner. Hot off the stove pithes, sweet grated coconut, and a drizzle of the finest liquid gold, the prized Nolen Gur. It was a sublime celebration of family, good food, and most importantly age-old traditions.

Now we would have left overs too. So the next day Dida would sit stirring and reducing a big cauldron of milk and in would go the leftover pithes with a generous portion of patali gur. The entire concoction of the pithes which by now had a bite to them in that smooth and deliciously flavored reduced milk still haunts my taste buds.

Here’s what an earthen Chitoi Pitha mold looks like:

Along with Chitoi Pitha Recipe, You may also like the recipes below:

Ranga Alur Puli Pithe

Choosi/Chushi Pithe

Dudh Pooli/Puli