Bihari Ghugni / Bihari Aloo Chana

I had prepared this delicious and nutritious ghugni as part of the Bihari thaali I posted a while ago. Ghugni happens to be a popular dish in Bihar and as well as in some of the neighboring states such as Asaam, Bengal and Odisha where it is enjoyed as a snack. The preparation of course varies from region to region. This spicy ghugni when made into a gravy, can be served as a side dish to go with roti, poori or even rice whereas the street version usually happens to be a dry one. Ghugni can also be prepared using white chickpeas, dried yellow peas or split chickpeas.

The onion and tomato mixture can be cooked directly in a pressure cooker and soaked chickpeas and potatoes can then be added and pressure cooked. For a quicker version, I cooked chick peas and potatoes individually and added to the cooked onion - tomato mixture that got cooked in a pan at the end.

Ingredients:
1.5 soaked and cooked black chick peas / kala chana
2 potatoes, peeled and cubed (About a cup)
1 tbsp. mustard oil, preferably for authentic taste
1/2 tsp. cumin seeds
1 bay leaf
2 green chili, sliced lengthwise
2 onions, chopped fine
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped / 1/4 tsp. garlic paste (I omitted it.)
1/2 inch ginger, finely grated / 1/4 tsp. ginger paste
1 big sized tomato, finely chopped
1/4 tsp. turmeric powder
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp. red chili powder
1/2 tsp. cumin powder
1 tsp. coriander powder
1 tsp. chole masala
1/2 tsp. garam masala

Directions:

* Soak chickpeas overnight or at least 8 hours with adequate water to soak. Let the container be big enough to hold the chickpeas which expand while soaking. Drain the water used to soak and pressure cook the chickpeas adding water as needed. 

* Cook the potatoes until tender and keep aside.
* Heat oil in a pan and add cumin seeds and bay leaf.  Immediately add green chili, onion and grated ginger. Sauté until onions turn golden brown. 

* Next add the tomatoes and cook until they turn mush. Add turmeric, salt, red chili powder, cumin and coriander powder, garam masala and chole masala. Cook for a minute.
* Add cooked chickpeas and cooked potato cubes and simmer for about five minutes. Mash some of the potatoes if the gravy needs to be thicker.

* Serve it with Indian style breads / rice.

This post is an entry for Blogging Marathon under the theme 'Regional Side dishes'. Check the link to find out what other marathoners are cooking.

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Kele Ki Tharuva / Kele Ki Tharua

Tharua / tharuva are crisply fried, vegetable slices that are served as a side dish / snack from Bihar and Jharkhand regions. I came across them on a YouTube video featuring a Bihari meal, from Mithila region to be particular. The home-cook showed tharuva made with both plantains and bitter gourds. The vegetables are peeled, sliced lengthwise and then sprinkled with a mixture of rice flour and spices and then are shallow fried. Mustard oil which is the local cooking medium is used but tharua can be fried using any neutral tasting cooking oil. Making tharuva is quite simple and straight forward and they remain crisp for a longer time. They can be therefore made a couple of hours before serving unlike bhajiya which turn soggy if sitting longer. 

The cook had used small sized green plantains which are widely available in India and chopped them once lengthwise. If chopped in that fashion, one is basically ending up with two thick and long slices from each plantain. I have made this plantain tharua three times so far, each time cutting plantains in different sizes. The first time, I kept the size of the pieces similar to the one I saw on the video and it took longer to cook them. My mother had coincidentally called when I was frying them. She mentioned seeing a similar dish on a cook show and suggested to chop the plantains into small, thin strips, which I followed this time. I have also tried chopping them into thin dices which I enjoyed the most though they may not be the traditional style. Whatever method you chose, try to keep the pieces in similar size and thickness so that they get fried at the same time, uniformly. Peel and remove the seeds if using bitter gourds for tharua.

Ingredients:
2 big sized plantains
3 or 4 tbsp. rice flour
1 tsp. coriander powder
1 tsp. chili powder or to taste
Salt to taste
1/4 tsp. turmeric powder
Oil to fry 

Directions:
* Chop the ends and peel the plantains. Cut each plantain lengthwise into two pieces. Chop each piece lengthwise into three portions. Depending upon the length of each piece, cut them into two or three crosswise.

* Combine rice flour, coriander powder, chili powder, salt and turmeric powder in  a wide plate. Roll the chopped plantain pieces in the mixture and sprinkle a tbsp. or two of water over the pieces to bind. (There may be some leftover rice flour mixture if the plantains are smaller in size.)

* Heat about 1/8 inch oil on medium flame in a wide skillet. There is no need to bring the oil to a smoking point. Drop gently plantain pieces into the hot oil. Add as many as the skillet can fit without overcrowding. Fry them for about a minute and lower the heat. Continue frying, turning them over occasionally until they turn golden brown. 

* Serve them as part of a Bihari thali or as a side dish or as a snack.

This post is an entry for Blogging Marathon and check the link to find out what other marathoners are cooking.

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Bhavra

I am going to post three 'chickpea flour / besan' based recipes this week and the first one is bhavra. Bhavra is a delicious chickpea flour / besan based snack from Bihar region and were a part of the Bihari thaali I posted last month. I came across this dish when I was randomly looking for regional snacks from that state and unfortunately that recipe link is no longer available online. Bhavra do not fall under the pakora / bhajiya category though a similar kind of chickpea flour based batter is used in the preparation of these tasty fritters. 

A batter of pourable consistency is prepared that includes black chickpeas as well. A ladleful of batter is poured into the hot oil and then shallow fried until it is golden brown. There is another variation that is prepared using fresh peas. These yummy bhavra can be a part of a festive meal or they make a perfect evening snack. They don't need an accompaniment to go with but can be served with some ketchup / chutney if desired.

Ingredients: (Yield 4 bhawra)
1/4 cup black chickpeas / kala chana, soaked overnight 
1/2 cup chickpea flour / gram flour / besan
2 heaped tsp. semolina / sooji (Rice flour is added traditionally.)
1/8 tsp. turmeric powder / haldi
1/2 tsp. carom seeds / ajwain 
2 tbsp. finely minced cilantro / dhaniye ke patte
1 tsp. grated or finely chopped ginger / adrak 
2 or 3 finely chopped green chillies / hari mirchi
1 small onion / pyaaz, grated or finely chopped
Salt to taste
Oil to fry

Method:
* Add all ingredients except oil to a bowl and mix to combine. 

* Add hot water as needed and form a batter with a consistency similar to almost a dosa batter. (I added about 6 tbsp. of hot water.)

* Heat oil in a pan on medium heat, for shallow frying. Pour a tiny drop of batter into hot oil and check whether it quickly swims to the surface. If it does, the oil is hot enough to fry. If not, heat the oil some more but do not bring it to a smoking point.
* Pour a ladleful of batter carefully into the hot oil. Pour the hot oil (in the pan) over the surface of the batter with a slotted spoon once or twice. Lower the heat slightly but do not go to the lowest setting as the oil needs to be hot while frying.

* When the bottom side turns brown, flip and cook until the other side turns golden brown as well.

* Remove the fried bhawra with a slotted spoon, draining as much oil as possible and transfer onto a plate covered with paper towels. Repeat the steps with the remaining batter.
* Serve them warm as it is or with ketchup or a chutney if desired. 

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Bihari Thaali ~ Aloo Bhujiya Subzi

My second regional thaali is from Bihar and is more like a home cooked meal rather than restaurant style one. Bihar is one of the states in the eastern part of India and so their cooking is similar to their neighbors in Bengal and also north Indian cooking in general. Bihari cuisine includes Bhojpuri, Maithili and Magahi cuisines and my thaali includes Mithila dishes like taruva and shakrouri. Everyday meals include the standard rice, roti, dals, pickles and vegetable preparations similar to the neighboring states but the dishes keep changing seasonally. Use of mustard oil, the five spice blend panch phoran, milk products are common features of Bihari cuisine while dishes with garam masala are less common. Most dishes are steamed with a light seasoning. Biharis are famous for their kebabs while they have wide range of vegetarian cuisine. Some of the vegetarian dishes popular in the region are sattu ke parathe, litti chowka,  dal pitha, thekua, tarua, posta daana ka halwa, khurma, makhana kheer, lai, kasar, paan peda and others. (Some info from wiki)

I had a vague idea about what I am going to include in this thaali  as my husband had lived about a year or so in Ranchi long back. Sattu ke parathe, aloo bhujiya, lauki chana dal, ghugni, chowka were a given. The rest came into thaali after I watched several Bihari recipes on YouTube which also included a thaali meal from the Mithila region. The woman cooks traditional food from her humble kitchen and I appreciate her daughter's efforts to showcase her mom's culinary expertise virtually. I literally recreated her sattu ke parathe, tharuve, tomato chutney, and the dessert shakrouri recipes in my kitchen. Sattu ke parathe and the chowka were match made in heaven. We very much enjoyed bhavra and tharuve that I have made the latter two more times. Shakrouri was a delight to my sweet tooth. Now I know what to do when I have leftover laddus.

My Bihari thaali menu is below.

Salad:
Cucumber slices
Rice and Bread:
Rice 
Sattu ke parathe - Flatbreads stuffed with sattu, roasted and ground Bengal gram
Dal and Curries:
Aloo Bhujiya - Dry potato saute 
Ghugni - Black chickpea curry
Lauki Chane dal - Bottle gourd and split chickpea dal (Recipe is here.)
Snacks
Kele ke tharuva - Crisp, fried plantains (Recipe here )
Bhavra - Black garbanzo bean fritters
Accompaniments:
Chowka
Tamatar ki chutney - Tomato chutney
Raita - Yogurt sauce
Sweet:
Shakrouri - Boondi kheer



I decided to post a simple recipe for Aloo bhujiya today as I did not take step by step pictures for this particular one. The aoo bhujiya I am referring to here is not the savory snack / the fried chickpea noodles but is a dry potato saute popular in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh states. It is a simple stir fry cooked in mustard oil, and flavored just with cumin seeds and red chillies. No garlic - ginger paste or special spice blends are needed here. The potatoes are cut into strips and cooked in mustard oil which is the cooking medium in Bihari cuisine, which lends it's signature flavor. We are not fans of mustard oil and so I used olive oil here but use mustard oil if you can. I did not cook the potatoes to a point of roasting or lightly browning them as some of the online recipes suggested. I cooked them until they were done as my husband remembers the subzi.

Ingredients:
3 / 4 potatoes
1 to 2 tbsp. mustard oil (or oil of your choice)
1 tsp. cumin seeds
3 red chillies or to taste, broken into bits
2 pinches of ground turmeric
Salt to taste

Directions:
* Peel the potatoes and cut into strips like you do for French fries. 
* Heat oil in a non stick pan until it almost reaches smoking point if using mustard oil. Add cumin seeds and red chillies. When the cumin and chilies start to turn a shade darker, add potatoes and turmeric. Stir once, cover and cook on low medium flame until they are done, stirring gently now and then. 
* They can be fried more until they turn a little crisp and brown, if desired. Add salt finally, give it a mix and cook for few seconds more. Turn off the stove and serve warm with rice / rotis.

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Chana Dal Puri / Paratha

My husband had lived in Bihar decades ago, for about a year and seems to have traveled extensively through the area. Through the casual conversations we had over the years, I had known that he had first hand experience of good, authentic Bihari food at his friends' houses cooked by generous hostesses. I thought he may throw some ideas at me for today's post other than litti - choka and went asking him whether he would like to try some Bihari food. My husband had of course a question mark on his face for that particular out of the blue question. And he wanted to know why I was being so generous offering him choices. I had to mention about the marathon and asked if he has any suggestions, the only thing he remembered were sattu and littis. Of course the man would remember the gastronomic experiences but not the recipe names, I should have known. 

I wanted to particularly stay away from the predictable sattu and litti for this marathon. And so I diverted back my attention to online sources and found these Chana dal puris that are said to be a part of festivities in Bihar. These nutritious, filling are served with rice kheer and chutney. The pooris are stuffed with a spicy chana dal filling while rolling and then fried. They can be eaten with a pickle on side but remember to prepare the stuffing spicier than you can handle. The outer layer of poori is bland and will take away the heat quotient from the stuffing. I have given the method for dal puris below though I fried only a couple of pooris and made parathas with the rest of the dough and filling. 

Ingredients for 12 puris:
1.5 cups wheat flour / atta
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp oil
3/4 cup chana dal / Bengal gram
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 small bay leaf
1 - 2 green chillies finely minced
1 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
Salt to taste
Chili powder to taste
Minced cilantro
Oil to fry pooris / toast parathas

Method:
* Combine flour, salt and 1 tbsp oil in a mixing bowl. Add enough water and form a soft, pliable dough. Let it rest for at least an hour. * Cook chana dal  until soft in a pressure cooker. If cooking in a sauce pan, soak chana dal in water for about 3 to 4 hours to facilitate quick cooking. After the dal is cooked, drain and keep it aside.
* Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan and add cumin seeds. When they start to brown, add bay leaf and green chillies. Saute for a few seconds and all the spice powders. Saute for few seconds. Then add chana dal and salt. Mash the cooked chana dal well with the back of a ladl and stir until the spices get incorporated. Sprinkle with cilantro, mix once again and keep it aside.

* Make 12 equal portions from the dough. Roll each portion into a ball and roll out into a 3 inch circle. Place a lime sized filling at the center of the rolled out circle.

* Bring the ends of the rolled out dough circle together so that the filling is enclosed within the dough covering. Roll out again taking care that the filling is not spilled outside.

* Heat oil to deep fry. Gently drop the rolled out stuffed pooris into the hot oil.

* Fry until golden brown on both sides, remove it with a slotted spoon and drain on absorbent towels.
* Repeat the process with the remaining dough balls.

Check here to know what other marathoners are cooking.

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