Besan Tarkari/Besan Ki Sabji/Gramflour Dumplings Curry

Regional cuisines of India shares many delightful dishes with pantry friendly ingredients. Am amazed to see our own Indian cuisine is loaded with varieties of dishes you can cook in an ease. Our Regional cuisines rocks, and whenever i cross a new dish from any part of India, i dont forget to bookmark them. Obviously my bookmarked lists is overflooding since a long and i have couple of dishes to dish out very soon. You might have noticed that i dont hesitate a second to try new dishes as i love to explore other style of cuisine than sticking with my usual cooking style. Am a person who love to try and test especially if the recipe calls for simple ingredients. One of my recent trial from Odisha cuisine is this Besan Tarkari which means as gramflour dumplings cooked in spicy curry.

Mung Lau Dalma & Channa Chadchadi - Orissa/Odisha Special

Orissa/Odisha is a state located on the South east coast of India, their cuisine known as Oriya cuisine.Most of the dishes from thos cuisine tastes delicious coz of their characteristic taste and flavor. This delicious and simple cuisine is influenced by the cuisines of the neighboring states of Bihar and West Bengal. People of Orissa are a happy union of both vegetarians and non vegetarians but non vegetarian foods is usually avoiced during the religious ceremonies, Mustard oil is used in everyday cooking and ghee is used during special days. Rice is the staple food of this state and wheat is the second popular crop, vegetables like brinjal, pumpkin,gourd are usually cooked. A traditional Oriya meal is served on large thali and other dishes are served in small bowls and placed around the large plate.A typical Oriya meal includes the intake of Saaga (green leaf-based dish), Bhaji (fried vegetable dish), Bhaat (rice), Dal (pulse), Besara or Mahura (curry tempered with spices), Machha tarkari (fish curry) and Khatta (chutney). Channa Dali is a preferred dish of the Oriyas which is a sweetened pulse dish tempered with coconuts, raisins, dry fruits and spices. Dalma is another favorite item of the Oriyas as the dish is a mixture of lentils and a number of vegetables and that make it a very nutritional dish. During the summer months the people of Orissa enjoy Pakhala (fermented rice seasoned with yoghurt and spices). Mitha Bhaat (sweetened rice tempered with a number of spices) is also a popular dish. People are also fond of Polao (rice cooked with butter, nuts, raisins, vegetables and spices).

No Oriya meal is complete without chutneys, so variety of chutneys are cooked and needless to say Oriya cuisine have a list of sweets especially milk based sweets.Pitha is a local name of cakes which are prepared with traditional methos. Tea and coffee are the popular beverages and Bel Pana is the drink made with milk, a pulp of wood apple, sweetened with sugar and flavoured with black  pepper. Fresh Fruit like wood apple,mangoes,jackfruits,watermelons, bananas are eaten by the people in Orissa. I cooked the famous dalma with yellow moongdal and bottlegourd along with channa chadchadi a stir fry with black chickpeas.Both makes a prefect meal and we had our lunch with these fingerlicking foods. Dalma and channa chadchadi are very quick and simple comforting foods which gets ready easily.Sending to CWS- Chickpeas guest hosted by Nalini.

Chenna Poda~~IC Challenge

Chenna poda, an incredible Indian cheesecake from Orissa, actually we used to make many sweets like rasogollas,pedas etc from chenna aka paneer a well known Indian cheese..This irresistible cheesecake from Orissa is also prepared from homemade freshly prepared paneer along with simple ingredients..Eventhough this cake is quite famous in Orissa, its totally new for me, after missing last month's challenge coz of my surgery i was waiting eagerly for this month's challenge, when Srivalli announced Indian Cooking Challenge with this chenna poda as this month's challenge i was really excited and try out few days back this super addictive Indian cheesecake..Its turned out super prefect with a wonderful super moist texture as this recipe is prepared completely with paneer along with small quantity of rava,sugar, cashews and raisins..Thanks to Srivalli for this wonderful challenge, i simply enjoyed it..I choosed Shibani's version which sounds super easy for me also i used my silicon individual muffin mould for making this cheesecake..

500grms Fresh Paneer
1/4cup Rava
1cup Sugar
1/2tsp Cardamom powder
2tbsp Raisins
Few cashew nuts
Caramel syrup as per need

In a large bowl, mash the fresh paneer cheese, add the rava,sugar,cardamom powder, raisins and cashew nuts to the cheese and mix it well using hands..

Pour the caramel syrup as per need to the mould, then pour the cheese mixture to the mouldcover the mould with aluminium foil,make some slits on the foil with a knife and bake for 30minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Cool it completely and serve it..This chenna poda stays prefect for a week in fridge..