Cooking Daal Pithi….

A famous dish from Bihar, Daal pithi is very light on stomach and nutritious. Typically daal pithi is served with chokha (mashed potatoes fried with some onions, green chillies and pickle masala). It is a versatile dish and can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner!

This is how I make it for my regular cooking.

Ingredients

For daal 

• Toor (Arhar) daal  2 cups
• Water 4 cups
• Turmeric (Haldi) powder 1/4th of a teaspoon
• Salt to taste
• Tomato 2 diced
• Ginger  1 teaspoon
• Garlic 1 teaspoon

Pressure cook the above ingredients

For Pithis

• Wheat flour 1 cup
• Salt to taste
• Water
• Mix all the above ingredients to make a soft dough

For filling

• 4 Potatoes boiled, peeled and mashed
• Onion diced 1
• Turmeric (Haldi)
• Salt
• Mustard (Rai) seeds
• Asafetida (Hing) quarter teaspoon
• Curry leaves
• Oil 1 tablespoon

Method

• In a Kadai put oil add Asafetida, mustard seeds and curry leaves
• Add onions and fry till golden
• Add mashed potatoes, salt and haldi
• Fry this for sometime  may be for 5 to 7 minutes
• Set aside when done

For filling Pithis

• Make very small balls of the dough and make thin Puris
• Put spoon full of the potato filling to it.
• Now press from four sides to make a flower shape of the pithis. Repeat for all the pithis.
• Now add these flower pithis to the ready daal and pressure cook till 6 whistles

For tadka

• Ghee 2 tablespoon
• Onion 1
• Whole cumin (jeera) 1 tablespoon
• Asafetida a pinch

Open the pressure cooker and give a strong ghee tadka with the above ingredients.

Image courtesy – http://indiancookingmanual.com/2015/06/page/3/ (main image)