The Steaming Pot - Easy vegetarian recipes from India

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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Sattu, or roasted gram flour, was once a litttle-known staple of rural Bihar. Not anymore. With more awareness of sattu’s nutritive profile – high protein, low glycemic index, high fiber, low sodium – “poor man’s protein” sattu is now hailed as 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 post-workout drink or colon cleanser on the day after a heavy meal.

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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.

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