Dhuska/Dhooska

Dhuska is a well known deep fried snack from Jharkhand. This fried snacks are eaten all over Jharkhand which calls for rice, channa dal as two main ingredients. Actually, earlier Jharkhand cuisine is quite unknown cuisine for me. Before a year, for an event i cooked a dish from this cuisine and totally enjoyed going through their cuisine. Learned few recipes through google master and have bookmarked few from this cuisine as much i do with other unknown cuisine. And for this month's Shh Cooking Secretly, a monthly event started by me, which is now hosted by Mayuri Patel. We are cooking from Jharkhand, and i have been paired with Priya Mahesh of  Priyas Kitchen . Priya was kind enough to give me my two ingredients which is quite a staple food for a South Indian like me. Yes my two secret ingredients are Rice and channadal. 

Dal Peethi - Jharkhand Special

Jharkhand is state is in Eastern India, its shares its border with Bihar in north, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in west, Odisha in south and West Bengal in east. The name Jharkhand means 'The Land of Forests'.After Kashmiri stuffed chillies now we are travelling today to Jharkhandi's cuisine, this cuisine is a traditionl and a combination of various locality from Jharkhand region, so foods are traditional while others comes from mixed culture of adjoining areas. Foods cooked in Jharkhand are very much light on the stomach and they are quiet easy to digest.A touch of the Mugalai cuisine is visible in this cuisine. Roti (bread), rice, dal (pulses) and tarkari (vegetables), bhujia (thinly sliced fried vegetables) constitute the main meal for most of the people in the state. A variety of pickles and chutneys are eaten along with the meals. On Saturdays, people prefer to eat Khichdi (rice cooked with pulses and seasoned with turmeric and chilly powder) with curd, a variety of pickles and chutneys (made from raw mangoes, lemon and tamarind), papad and chokha.

Peoples of Jharkhand also love lipsmacking sweets, they make many varieties of sweets like Thekua, Besan halwa,Sooji ka halwa, Peda, Jalebi,Kheer, Mal pua and many more delicacies of Jharkhand will definitely tickle the taste buds. Tribal people in Jharkhand are fond of using various flowers as vegetable, drumstick flowers and jhirool are the most used varieties, palak,bathua,methi and chana are the main saag vegetables of their cuisine. Blackberry,litchi and mangoes are their popular fruits. Many traditional foods belongs to this cuisine are famous for their medicinal values. Sattu, is an integral part of the Jharkhand food is quite beneficial in hot weather as their refreshing and filling.I cooked Dalpeethi, a fantastic dish for my today's Jharkhand special, wheat flour rolled as small circles then shaped as flowers are cooked in spiced dal makes this fantastic healthy,filling dal peethi,this dish sounds almost like Gujarathi Dal Dhokli. You can have this dish just like that without any accompaniment. This filling dish can enjoyed thoroughly for a lunch or dinner, am sure you will have a satisfying meal.Sending to my own event Healthy Diet-Cooking with Wholegrains guest hosted by Nupur.

Litti Chokha ~~SN Challenge

Litti Chokha is a traditional snack and a main course dish often eaten in UP, Bihar and Jharkhand region of India. But this the first time am trying my hands in making this fantastic dish. This dish is simply awesome and highly filling that you can have it for breakfast, lunch and for dinner. Actually Litti sounds almost like Rajasthani Baati but Litti is completely different dish in terms of taste,texture and prearation,its goes for stuffing with roasted gram flour with few spices.The stuffing makes the difference and the stuffing of the Litti is called Pitthi. Litti is served along with grilleded eggplants or mashed potatoes called Chokha.Chokha is a kind of accompaniment to enjoy thoroughly with Littis, today chokha is with just potatoes, eventhough some peoples may add both eggplants and potatoes in their chokha.

You may wonder why am posting this Litti Chokha today, coz Nupur of Uk Rasoi challenged the Southern team of  South vs North Challenge an event owned by Divya Pramil with this fantastic combo while i challenged Northern team with popular Mangalorean snack Goli Baje. Honestly i always want to make some Litti at home but somehow i kept myself away from this incredible dish coz of the sattu, but Nupur helped us by giving the tips to prepare sattu at home and for me sattu sounds exactly like a dry roasted gram flour, then i pinged Nupur regarding sattu, she said to go with roasted gram flour. Thanks Nupur for giving me this much liberty to go for a simple roasted gram flour than the traditional one. However i'll be making Sattu at home coz am planning to make kachori with this sattu. Coming to this Litti Chokha, am gonna have this Litti Chokha for my dinner tonite and trust me the flavour of ghee coated Litti and delicious Chokha makes me hungry already. Atleast once,you guys have to make this oven cooked Litti eventhough the traditional one is boiled and shallowfried later.Loved this challenge and learned an another beautiful traditional dish today through this challenge.