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.

Goli Baje|Mangalore Bajji|Goli Bajje - A Mangalore Special

When the weather is down or rainy, seriously i love to munch some fried beauties for my evening snacks with a cup of masala chai. When i came to know that am the host of this month's South Vs North Challenge, an event created by  Divya Pramil of You Too Can Cook, i know i'll be preparing a deep fried evening snacks.  The motto of this event is to exchange an Indian recipe between two teams. One team is Southern team (food bloggers born and brought in South India) and the another one team is Northern team (food bloggers born and brought in North India).Every first of a month, a blogger from each team will challenge a recipe from their origin and the opposite team have to cook the recipe challenged by the other team. Am very much happy to say that i got an immense opportunity to challenge again  the opposite Northern team for this month on behalf of Southern team. I have to say a big thanks to Divya for giving me this opportunity again after challenging the opposite team with one of my grandma's signature dish, the famous Chettinad Pakoda Kuzhambu few months back.

Coming to today's recipe, instead of making Tamilnadu foods i picked this addictive snack food from Mangalorean cuisine.Goli Baje or Goli Bajje, is a famous deep fried snacks which is quite popular in South Canara. This tea time snacks sound almost like Tamilian's Urad Dal bonda but this goli bajje are quite easier than urad dal bonda. With simple ingredients this deep fried beauties are prepared without any hassle.No grinding, no soaking and no onion or garlic, yes this Mangalore bajjis goes for an easy breezy preparation. Traditionally this bajjis are served with coconut chutney but somehow i love mine with ketchup, however this bajjis doesnt even need any side dish.

Crostini with Cherry Tomatoes and Mozzarella

Crostini are small toasts in Italian and they are prepared as an appetizer. Crostini is prepared with small slices of grilled or toasted bread with cheeses,meats and vegetables as toppings or else they go for a simple olive oil and herbs or else with a simple sauce. Crostini goes always for French or Italian baguettes, a simple appetizer which goes for a quick preparation with simple ingredients.Crostini is almost like bruschetta eventhough bruschetta can be served as a snack or as an appetizer.

For this month's International Food Challenge , a monthly event started by two wonderful food bloggers Sara and Shobana,I suggested few Italian dishes and one among those dishes i challenged the other members of the group is this Crostini with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella.This crostini takes hardly 15 to 20minutes to get ready and they are a prefect appetizer for a get together or else for a party menu.

Badam Karasev/Almond Karasev

Murukkus/chaklis, sev and then karasev have their important place in our Diwali savouries,for a change i tried adding some grounded thick badam paste while making karasev this time,trust me these karasev are just simply out of the world. They were crunchy,very addictive with a melt in mouth texture. You can just stop with one, adding badam aka almonds to the karasev makes this savoury very interesting than the usual karasev, also i used coarse pepper powder to spice them instead of chilly powder. Instead of making the usual Karasev, try to almonds in your karasev and see the difference.

Hope you are all busy with Diwali preparation and shopping, i miss all those fun here, but am happy that kids and H will be at home this time coz Diwali falls on saturday.Obviously i'll start my diwali preparation only on thursday as i dont want to make everything earlier, also this time its not going to be big celebration here. A simple pooja with some savouries and sweets is quite enough to celebrate the Festivals of Lights, however this is how we are celebrating Diwali every year here. This beauties are going Diwali Delicacies Event, hosted by me and Sangee Vijay of spicy treats and to Gayathri's Diwali Special.Today is the last thursday of the month and its time to post for Vegan Thursdays, an vegan event running twice a month and these crunchy munchies goes to this event too.