Pukhlein - Meghalaya Special

During this long month marathon, the most challenging regions to cook a dish from its North Eastern regions, am sure my co marathoners will accept this. Its really hard to get a recipe especially for Meghalaya region.Meghalaya is one among the seven states from the Northeastern part of India. As the name says, Meghalaya is the land of clouds and have heavy rainfull during the monsoons.Meghalaya cuisine have unique taste of it own. Meghalaya is the home of three tribes named Khasi, Garo and Jaintia. Obviously this cuisine is a tribal cuisine and its mainly non vegetarian dishes. As like its neighbour regions, rice is the staple food of Meghalaya peoples. The red rice grown locally is relished by the people for its delicious taste. The local people consume meats and pork is the popular meat among the people of the three tribes. The cooking style of Khasi and Jaintia ressembles very much and they use black sesame seeds to temper the pork dishes.Meghalaya is rich in production of fruits like orange,lemon,banana, guava,pineapples, so that the local people love eating fruits.Jadoh is the famous food from Khasi cuisine, this dish is prepared with pork and rice.

Rice cakes are very much popular among the native and they are known as putharo. Pumaloi is an another variety of dry and flaky cake made from rice flour. Among the snacks, deepfried and jaggery sweetened Pukhlein and steamed pusla are the favourite delicacies savored with tea. I chosed to make Pukhlein as they sounds almost like our athirasam but the method was seriously very quick than the famous athirasam. Trust me this dish is dangerously addictive, we couldnt stop munching these fantastic rice cakes.