My kind of comfort food : Not fancy, just filling (Boiled "Litti" dish)

Cooking is not everybody game. I find my friends pretty poor in cooking. They never take interest in cooking. But I always try my hand in cooking different dishes. I think it is in my genes thanks to my MoM. I am not saying I am a complete cook, but time on time, I always try new stuff (especially those sounds easy to cook). Recently I learned about a new method of cooking Litti. A local cuisine in my region. It was easy way that drive me to try it for my Sunday breakfast.

Litti is more than food in my region. It is a tradition in eastern India. Made from whole wheat flour and sattu (roasted gram flour). It is high in protein and fiber, providing a complete and filling meal. Roasted over fire or coals, Litti gets a distinct smoky taste, enhanced by ghee

Litti becomes a famous winter delicacy because its affordability. Many people like to cook it over ambers which is common during winter at every household. Those who unable to get ambers try to prepare it in Parathas style. But I tried to cook it little differently. I wanted it in 'momo' style I.e stuffing and steeming. To a certain extent I succeed in my trial.

It was a foggy Sunday, and very cold outside. I need something hot in my breakfast that keep me energized whole day. So I tried to cook Litti at home in a new way. Making litti does not require any special ingredients, as everything is available at home. To prepare litti for 2 person I took.

• 3 cups of wheat flour (200 grams)
• 1 cup of sattu 50 grams(roasted gram floor)
• 2 green chillies
• 1 small onion
• 3 cloves of Garlic
• 2 tablespoon to lemon juice
• salt to taste
• a pinch of Ajwain (carom seeds)
• pickle to taste.
• Ghee or oil to roast.

I have kneaded whole wheat and added pinch of salt and ajwain (carom seeds). While I took the sattu in a different bowl and added salt and mix it (we still need to add more item)

wheat floor	sattu

Litti is stuffing dish. The sattu is stuffed into the wheat floor and cooked. The ingredients that were used in filling is what makes the dish super special. We need to make sattu the stuffing material as better as it could be. I chopped onion, garlic and chilies and fried it in little oil. I make use of mustard oil. (you can use these material in raw form too)

We do not need to deep fry the materials. As it will added to the sattu. After frying it on low flame I poured all the material into the Sattu bowl.

To give a tangy and spicy taste to the stuffing material, I made use of home made mango pickles. I added the pickle masala to sattu.

I further added the lemon juice and mix the mixture properly. Sattu being made up of roasted gram, does not require any special cooking. After mixing it properly our stuffing material is ready.

You can notice the change of color of the sattu. Earlier it was light in color but after adding and mixing all the material, it turns bit yellowish. Now it is the time to make a bowl of the wheat floor and fill these stuffing and closed them properly. It requires a slow process using fingers to make a proper bowl and placing the sattu material and then packing it properly in round and pressing them with hand to flatten. (As my hands were busy , I could not snap any picture) I place the flatten base on cooker with open lid to boil. Usually I wanted to steem it., but does not have proper resources to try that way.

in general these sattu stuffed flour were placed on ambers to roast. But I make way to boil it

I made use of the cooker and use enough water to make our wheat base dipped into it. It take 10 minutes to boil them properly. Our boiled Sattu-Litti is ready to eat. You can apply Ghee or butter and have it. But I went a step ahead and fried it a bit in a pan to make bit crispier.

The lack of ghee and butter made me to opt for frying. The texture does comes out good and so does my dish. The stuffing was equally tasty.

This is my first time cooking of this dish in this way. I made Sattu Parathas a number of time, but trying this way is easier. The taste is better too. A new form of our local dish. You can enjoy this dish either with ketchup or any chutney or Chokha. I had it with a cup of hot ginger tea and it was delicious 😋 ❤️

In good faith - Peace!!