Bihari Recipes | The Steaming Pot

Sliced Aloo, Chokha Style

Sliced aloo “chokha style” is a spin on Bihar’s aloo chokha, with the potatoes sliced instead of mashed. The trick to making this recipe is in boiling the potatoes just right: neither so soft that they give way when pressed, nor so firm that they need extended sautéing post-boiling to make them bite-friendly.

“Chokha”, in case you’re wondering, is not the Caucasian woollen coat as Wikipedia would have you believe. To know what the word means in the context of food, take a look at our parval chokha recipe.

When a friend returned from Austin to Chennai, she brought back for her mother an ornate crockpot. Her mother unsurprisingly did not find much use for the contraption in her home cooking. For a while the crockpot was relegated to the far corner of her storage shelves. Till inspiration struck – and she converted the crockpot into a tulsi planter.

My story is not as drastic as that, but seeing my mother use her paddu maker for cooking littis raised a smile much like my friend’s story did. Paddus are not a staple food for us, so her paddu maker would mostly lie forlorn. One day my mother decided to give the equipment a "litti maker" makeover. The rounded fissures of the paddu griddle work perfectly as receptacles for litti balls. Slow cooking on the fire, with a turn or two in between, gives us littis close to the traditional fire-roasted ones.

A Bihari meal typically carries small servings of side dishes next to rice/roti and curry: chutney, bhujiya (fried stuff), chokha (mashed stuff). Parval chokha is one such popular side, in which parval (pointed gourd) is boiled and mashed with seasoning.

This recipe pays homage to parval, a gourd popular in the eastern states of India. Whenever we make a trip to Bihar, we come back loaded with parval ^[1] by the bagful – we could buy this elsewhere too, sure, but the quality we find in Bihar is unmatched.

If you do get hold of parval glistening green on the outside, seeds and flesh tender and firm – count yourself blessed and make parval ki bhujiya this way. This recipe lets the gourd take the spotlight – no dousing in spices, no other vegetables added to the mix.

Aloo chana (or aloo channa) is an easy-to-cook recipe from Bihar that uses kala chana (black chickpeas / kaala channa) – the smaller, thicker-skinned sibling of the chickpea used in chana masala or hummus. Black chickpeas have an earthy, dense flavor and high fibre content, and are popularly used in Bihari cooking. This aloo chana dish is filling, a good source of carbs, protein and iron – besides being really tasty.

Sattu Jaljeera Drink - Savory High Protein Drink

Sattu, or roasted gram flour, was once a little-known staple of rural Bihar. Not anymore. With more awareness of sattu’s nutritive profile – low glycemic index, fiber-dense, low sodium – “poor man’s protein” sattu is now hailed as a superfood.

Is there a delight greater than discovering that tasty comfort food is also extremely healthy, and that extremely healthy is also extremely affordable?

This sattu jaljeera drink combines sattu with jaljeera (cumin-based spice). It is really quick to put together and needs no cooking or fancy processing equipment. A great choice for “shortcut” breakfast or post-workout drink.

Mid-April each year, the harvest festival (or the start of the regional New Year) is celebrated round the country in diverse ways. Punjab has its Baisakhi, Kerala its Vishu. Bihar welcomes the season with Satuaan (सतुआन), also called Satuaa Sankranti (सतुआ संक्रांति).

The prefix satuaa- comes from sattu (roasted Bengal gram flour), a staple food in Bihar. For Satuaan, it is customary to eat a meal with sattu as its star item. The festival ushers in the summer season, so associating sattu-eating with it follows sound logic: sattu’s cooling properties are an effective antidote to heat.

We keep up with tradition by having sattu in some form on the occasion. This year, we had sattu chokha.

Sliced Aloo, Chokha Style

How To Make Littis in a Paddu Maker

Parval Chokha, a Bihari Thali Staple

Parval ki Bhujiya: Simply Served Pointed Gourd

Bihari Aloo Chana: Potato and Black Chickpea Curry

Sattu Jaljeera: Traditional, Low-Cost Indian Superfood Drink

Sattu Chokha: Comfort Food from Bihar