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As my folks are getting ready for Holi tomorrow back in India, I’m all with memories of Holi, listening to Holi songs from Hindi movies on Youtube. During my college days, Holi started a day early for me. Playing Holi after college in the college grounds, and then walking back home (we were banned to board any bus/taxi after all those colors in our clothes). And, then there was the D-day – playing with colors started right after breakfast and continued almost till late evening. There was gulal and of course the “badure rang”, which stayed on the skin for at least the next 7 days.
After I shifted to the United States, Holi has been constricted to just a couple of hours on a weekend before or after the actual Holi date. Here, its just the colored powders. This time we went to celebrate Holi at UT Austin organized by HSA. It was a great few hours spent, with an awesome DJ playing all Hindi songs (it was an welcome break from the English songs playing DJs in the pubs). The air was filled with colors, and it felt great playing with thousands of people, of whom I only new a few.
(Some of the Holi photos are taken from Gagan Singh’s Holi album. Thanks, Gagan)
Festivals and food go hand in hand. Holi is the time for some awesome snacks and sweets. As the Holi in Bihar is an epic event, I thought of preparing some Bihari snacks for Holi. Litti is a very common Bihari recipe. It is made with sattu, and is very similar to the Rajasthai bati of dal-bati churma.
Litti Chokha
- For the cover -
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- A pinch of salt
- 1 cup warm water
- For the filling -
- ½ cup sattu
- 1 tablespoon carom seeds
- 1 teaspoon aamchur powder
- 1 teaspoon nigella
- ½ teaspoon chili powder
- 2-3 green chilies, coarsely chopped
- 1-2 sprigs coriander, coarsely chopped
- Salt to taste
- Mix the flour and salt together and pour about half cup of warm water to make a dough, add extras water if needed. Make 10-12 one inch size balls from the dough. Keep aside
- Mix all the ingredients together for the filling, add about 2 tablespoon water and mix together to form a crumbly sand like texture. Add extra water if needed
- Roll out each flour flour, put in about 1 tablespoon of the filling and then wrap the filling with the dough. Roll the dough under your palm to form the balls. Repeat till all the dough balls are filled with the sattu filling.
- Preheat the oven to 450F. Place the sattu filled balls on a oven safe tray and cover it with aluminum foil. Bake for 50-60 minutes, or till the balls harden and have a charred look.
- Serve hot with a dollop of ghee
Litti tastes best with alu chokha and baingan bharta.
Hot Tips – Do not pour excess water to the filling, else it will become like a paste and wont taste good. Altenatively, the litti can be roasted in a barbecue grill or on a stove top using a tawa.
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hii
i try your recipe but pls tell is use of aachar masala compulsary.
Monika,
Its not compulsory, but of course it gives an added flavor to it. You can definitely skip it