Litti Chokha, staple food of Bihar, Jharkhand and Eastern Uttar Pradesh, a healthy dish made with minimal oil and cooking. Litti is a ball of dough and Chokha is the vegetable served with it. This dish is very much similar to Rajasthani Dal Bati.

Though Chokha remains the way it is but instead of wheat flour, I have used Jowar flour to make littis. Thus, you have gluten-free Litti.

It's a very lengthy recipe with lots of details and tips, so be patient please!

 

 

Though I decided to make Litti Chokha but didn't have its main ingredient which is Sattu. Sattu is nothing but roasted gram flour and is different from gram flour (besan). So, what to do? As lockdown is going on, it wasn't easy to get it from the market too. Luckily, I have lots of roasted Chana which we like to munch. So, the simple hack was that I ground those Chana and my homemade Sattu was ready. I used it as the filling. Thereafter, I tried these and were liked by everyone especially, my husband.

Though I had an idea as to how Litti Chokha is made but still when you head towards the kitchen to actually make it then it's a different case and you need a detailed recipe. Am I right? So, for this detailed recipe, I turned to someone who hails from Bihar only. He is Mr Anand and is also the person behind my blog. Yes, he takes care of the technical side of my blog. Getting a detailed recipe from him was really good as along with the recipe he also shared with me his mom's secret tips. Thanks a lot to him and his mom for this recipe.

What Is Litti?

Litti is a dough ball of wheat flour stuffed with Sattu filling. The filling is made by mixing lots of herbs and spices in Sattu flour. The taste of Litti depends very much upon this filling only. The dough balls are then cooked over coal or cow dung cakes or clay oven. These are cooked on slow heat so that they get cooked well from inside too.

What Is Chokha? 

Chokha is a mix of roasted brinjal, potatoes, tomatoes, onion and lot of herbs like garlic, green coriander, green chillies, lemon juice. ginger etc. All these things are just mashed and mixed without any further cooking. The main ingredient in Chokha is mustard oil which gives it, its pungent taste.

Unlike normal cooking, Chokha has minimal spices, just salt and red chillies and all the flavour comes from the herbs which are added to it.

Types Of Chokha

Now, this Chokha is made by different people in different styles. You can have Baingan (Brinjal) Chokha, Potatoes Chokha, Parwal Chokha, Tomato Chokha and so on. In each of these, basically, the main ingredient is boiled or roasted and is then mixed with herbs and seasoning. And you can mix all these and make one Chokha. Here, I have made one mix Chokha only.

How to Make

One may say that making Litti Chokha is a very lengthy process but I found it really easy to make. Yes, the list of ingredients is really long! Once you knead the dough and make the filling, its much easier than making stuffed parathas. You just stuff the filling in the dough, make a round again and bake all these together or maybe in 2 or 3 lots. When baked in air fryer or oven, then it is so easy. No hassle of rolling it or cooking it on skillet one by one.

Similarly, making Chokha is easy. The only time consuming thing is to roast brinjal. While the brinjal gets roasted, you chop other condiments like ginger, green coriander, green chillies etc.

 

Gluten-Free Litti

Litti, usually is made with wheat flour. The flour is kneaded and then stuffed with Sattu. As I have mentioned earlier posts too, that Sorghum or Jowar flour resembles wheat flour a lot. Amongst all the millets, it is the nearest to wheat in terms of looks as well as taste. So, I decided to try making Litti with Jowar flour only and it worked just beautifully. I have read that you can make Litti with Bajra flour (Pearl millet) too, but have not tried that so can't comment.

 

A Little About Sorghum Flour

You can read here about this wonder millet.

A Little About Sattu

You can read here about this magical ingredient here.

 

Difference Between Litti And Bati

Litti and Bati, looks are more or less similar and having a look at them its not easy to say, whether its a Litti or a Bati. They may look the same but the inside story is totally different. You name Bati and you get transported to the colourful land of Rajasthan and Litti takes you to the simple and sober Bihar.

There is just one similarity between the two, in fact, two. First is that the base of both these is whole wheat flour. You have to knead the flour, either make Bati or Litti. The second similarity is that both of these are cooked on charcoal, clay oven or in ovens, nowadays. And that's it! The similarity ends here.

Now, let's see how Litti and Bati are different from each other:

1.  Bati is a Rajasthani delicacy, whereas Litti is from the Bihari cuisine.
2. Bati is eaten with Dal, Churma and lots of ghee. Whereas Litti is eaten with Chokha, a curry vegetable may or may not accompany it.
3. Bati is plain or stuffed with peas or lentils. Whereas, Litti is always stuffed with Sattu.

 

Tips To Make Good Litti Chokha

• Before roasting brinjal, insert some small garlic pieces here and there in the brinjal. For this, make a cut and insert garlic through it. Then roast garlic. This way, even garlic will get roasted and its flavour will be very well embedded in the brinjal. A super tip, which you can use while making Baingan Ka Bharta too.
• Roast brinjal on medium flame so that it gets roasted well from inside too. The smoky flavour of brinjal in Chokha tastes great.
• Add chopped onions to the Sattu filling only if you are going to consume it within few hours. If you have plans to eat these Littis the next day too then omit onions.
• Always roast Littis on medium flame. If cooked on high flame, the outside will look cooked but will remain uncooked from inside.
• Make your filling really interesting and tasty by adding spices and herbs. Taste of Litti comes from the filling only.

 

Serving Suggestions

Litti is served mainly with Chokha, Papad, curd, and a curry dish may accompany, but not must.

Related Recipes:

• Dal Bati Churma
• Bisi Bele Bhat

 

Step By Step Recipe 

A. For Dough

• Take Jowar flour, salt, curd and oil in a bowl. Rub everything together so that it looks like sand.

• Adding little water at a time, knead a semi-soft dough. The dough should not be too hard otherwise it will be difficult to do the stuffing.
• Keep it aside.

B. For Filling

• As I didnt have Sattu, I powdered roasted chana in the grinder. Skip this step, if you have Sattu.

• Mix all the ingredients, Sattu, onions, garlic, spices, curd, achar ka masala, and mustard oil. Leave it for 5 to 10 minutes, as onions have a lot of moisture and it is released during this time.

• Add very little water, maybe a spoon or two, and make a moist dough, so that it can be formed into balls. This is done as it eases to fill it in the dough. And secondly, the filling remains intact even while eating. Otherwise, the filling may scatter.

• Make small balls of it so that its easier to do the filling.

C. For Litti

• Take a little dough, press it with hands and make a dent in the centre. Place a ball of filling in it and close it from all the sides.

• Make all littis like this.
• Preheat air fryer at 200 degrees for 5 minutes.
• Keep the shaped dough balls in the air fryer basket.

• Air fry for 15 to 20 minutes till they get golden in colour. You may flip these in between.

D. Making Litti In Appe Pan

• Heat Appe pan, grease it lightly with oil.
• Place the dough balls, lower the flame and cover it.

• After about 5 minutes, flip these to cook from the other side too.
• Changes sides after every 3 to 4 minutes till these are well cooked. Take care to cook these from the sides also, as often, the top and bottom gets cooked but the sides remain uncooked.

E. Chokha

• Wash brinjal and wipe it. Make slits with a knife, here and there and insert little garlic there. Doing this garlic too gets roasted along with the brinjal and releases very good flavour.
• Roast this brinjal on gas stove or in air fryer. I did it on gas stove today. Keep the flame medium and keep rotating it every now and then.
• Roast it till gets charred and you can insert a knife easily into it.
• Remove it from the fire and let it cool down.

• Remove the peels. You may keep it in a bowl of water to clean off the burnt peels.
• Similarly, roast tomatoes, peel off the skin and chop these finely.
• In a bowl, take roasted and peeled brinjal and boiled potatoes. Mash them together using a potato masher or back of a ladle.

 

• Mix in chopped tomatoes, onions, green coriander, ginger, salt, red chilli powder, mustard oil and lemon juice. And its ready.

• In simple words, mix roasted brinjal and boiled potatoes with all the herbs.
• Serve with Litti and lots of love, Chana curry optional.

 

Let's Connect!

I hope you have liked this healthy recipe of Litti Chokha and will surely try it out for your loved ones

Thank you for reading this post. If you have liked this recipe then do let me know by leaving a comment below. Your feedback fuels my enthusiasm. You may share this post with your dear ones by clicking on the little buttons below. You may follow me on   Facebook   Pinterest  Instagram(#samirasrecipediary) too. for latest recipe updates. Thank you!