Kheer Gokul Pithe Recipe

//Gokul Pithe with wheat Flour \\

Let me say it once again just like the previous post.. You did read the last post right?? If no (No??) then do it NOW!! Okay, starting again, Let me say it once again.. None of the Bengali Pithes are healthy (umm.. except Bhapa Pithe).. but they are as delicious as the first monsoon rain and they are simply Bengali delicacies that can not be ignored even with your stone-hearted biased choice. What you can do is, you can use high fiber ingredients to lower the intake of unnecessary calories.. and It’s winter.. this is the time you get season’s fresh jaggery, the family sticks together and makes their winter special ‘Pitheeesss‘!! Health freak or not.. you can’t ignore these homemade traditional winter bliss.. trust me, out of all odds of winter (for me of course) Pithes are my solace. . I survive the winters only for these small little pieces of joy!

Sankranti is the day of the year for making season’s first pithes!! But that doesn’t mean that we can’t make more pithes on the other days. We can and we do.. I had tried Gokul pithe few times at those local fares and every time I had been disappointed. They used to taste dripping sugar syrup like and of maida.. a ball of maida, that’s it. I usually don’t prefer trying complicated recipes but I guess my mind and taste buds are improvising every day; & here you go.. I tried Gokul Pithe, actually, I went one step ahead at my very first attempt and made Kheer Gokul Pithe. I can be very surprising (at times surely), you know!!

Ingredients:

Coconut: scraped 1 whole
Wheat flour: 1/2 cup
semolina: 1/2 of a 1/4 cup
Rice flour: 1/2 of a 1/4 cup
pinch of salt
Gheee: 1 table spoon
Jaggery: about 1 cup
Milk: 500 ml + 2 cups
Milk Powder: 4-5 table spoons
Cardamom: 2
sesame seeds: 1 table spoon
Peanuts: 2 table spoons crushed
oil
Baking Soda: 1 pinch

Preparation:

Stage 1: Batter

In a bowl, take wheat flour (I used multi grain atta), semolina, rice flour, pinch of salt and mix everything.
Then add a table spoon of ghee in it, mix it with the flour mix very well.
Now slowly add little milk. Mix, then again add some more milk.
It will be a thick consistency, not so thick that it doesn’t pour out of the spoon and not so runny that it can’t hold it’s filler. (the below picture may help), you may not need all 2 cups of milk.. may be less.
Cover it and keep this batter aside for about 15-20 minutes. Let the semolina swell bit.

** Looks like the malpua?? this is few steps more than malpua..

Stage 2: Coconut filler:

scrape the coconut, you may do it with the help of a coconut scraper or you may deshell the coconut, then cut them into small pieces, then grind in a mixer grinder.. it should not be more than 2-3 round. We don’t want a fine paste, just scrapd. okay??
Now, take a pan/pot/kadai.. whatever you are comfortable with.. Add 1/4 jaggery of the total quantity of the coconut.. read it again.. 1/4 measure of jaggery of the total measurement of the coconut. okay??
start with this much, later if you need, you may add more.. now once the pan is hot, add the jaggery and mix it constanly. The jaggery shouldn’t get burnt but it has to melt, once melted and bubbling, add the scraped coconut. quickly mix them together.. the coconut should be well quoted with the jaggery and now should turn to the colour of the jaggery.. now if you think it’s looking very light in colour, or the coconut isn’t sticking to each other (not to the pot but the coconut and jaggery should come together & should stick to each other), then add little more jaggery here, quickly mix. This mixing & stirring process shouldn’t take more than 5-8 minutes.
Now switch the flame off, add 2 tablespoons of milk powder, the dry roasted sesame and nuts (this is optional, you may use any nuts of your choice) and mix it well. The milk powder should mix really well with the coconut.
Take it off the pan, keep the coconut mix on a plate and let it cool a bit.
Once moderately cold, make small balls with them and press them slightly flat from the middle. ** incase the ball isn’t coming together, no matter how much you try it’s falling apart, then you have to add more jaggery here, so once again put it on the pan and add little more jaggery on low flame.
With a whole coconut, I made 15 balls. & they were more or less consistent in size.

Stage 3:

Now take a clean pan/pot/flat kadai. Add lots of oil for deep fry (you can shallow fry this one.. then it will soak more oil.. deep frying will actually save you the consumption of the oil). Let the oil get hot, like really good hot.
Take the batter, add a pinch of baking soda and mix the bateer again.
Now take one coconut ball, gently quote them in the flour batter with the help of a spoon, just drop it in the batter, with the help of the spoon flip the ball from both sides and quote it well and gently drop it in the smoking hot oil. as I said, the oil is smoking hot.. please be carefull whole dropping the well quoted balls in the oil.
Do the same with other balls as well.. now don’t drop all the balls at a time, keep good space in between as you will need it while flipping them.
Cook them on medium flame from both sides. each side will take about 3 minutes, once they turn silghtly brown from both sides, you can take them off the heat.
*** POINT TO BE NOTED: in most of the recipes, all of them said the balls shouldn’t get too brown or else they will become hard .. but honesly some of those coconut balls did turn slightly dark brown.. but they were soft and tasted amazing.. This has been my learning and I had to share with you.

*** NOW***

You can eat these fried pithes as it is.. I did, my family did. It ws soft, crispy and tasty.. there’s already coconut filler inside so you don’t added sweetner here.
OR.. You can dip the fried pithes in the sheera/ liquid sauce made of jaggery for few seconds and take them off the sheera and enjoy these Gokul pithes (this is another way of having them). To knwo how to make jaggery sheera.. check my last post (link shared below).