Litti Chokha Recipe | How to make stuffed litti chokha
Litti Chokha is the most traditional and authentic dish from northern India which mainly belongs to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states, wherein litti has a spiced roasted gram flour stuffing and chokha made from roasted eggplant and other ingredients. People often get confused between litti and Batti. There’s a slight difference between the two, litti has a gram flour stuffing also known as sattu whereas Batti is a flaky round wheat flour dough without any stuffing.
How to make Chokha
Chokha can be made in n number of ways. You can mix the veggies together or you can keep it different. Chokha’s are usually made from roasted eggplant (baingan), roasted tomatoes (tamatar), boiled potatoes (allu). You can combine all three chokha’s together or make them separately, depending on your taste. Litti chokha is a very nutritious and healthy food which can be served in lunch or dinner.
Preparing litti chokha is easy but takes time. You can treat yourself and family with litti chokha on weekends or holidays. The traditional way of making litti is roasting the stuffed whole wheat flour dough on hot charcoals or dried cow dung, which gives an ultimate taste to litti’s. But now not all of us has the charcoal-based grill in our house, so we can simply roast them on the flame directly, or on tawa or you can even fry them. Also, you can bake them in the oven. Here, I am using appe maker for making litti’s.
For stuffing litti’s we need sattu. Sattu is simply roasted Bengal gram flour. If you don’t have sattu, you can simply grind the roasted chana dal (Bengal gram lentils) and then sieve the flour and use it. However, if you have besan you can just roast the besan till it turns aromatic and slightly changes its color. The most important ingredient that makes sattu tastes delightful is mango pickle or chili pickle. Alternatively, you can add some of the spices that are used in making pickles.
Various methods of making litti’s:
- Baking in Oven: Place all the stuffed litti’s on a baking tray and bake it for 15 – 20 mins each from both the sides till it gets golden brown color.
- Roasting in pan or tawa: Slightly flatten the litti’s and place it on hot tawa (thick tawa is preferred). Cook from both the sides till it gets brown spots.
- Deep Frying: Flatten the litti’s like kachori and deep fry. Before frying, seal the litti’s securely otherwise the stuffing will spread in oil.
- Appe maker: Place the litti’s in each slot of the appe maker and cover and cook on low flame for 10 – 12 mins each side. Finally, apply ghee and again cook for 2 mins.
Let’s see ingredients for making litti chokha:
For making Litti:
- 2 Cup whole wheat flour
- Pinch of baking soda
- 1 tsp salt or as per taste
- 1 tsp carom seeds or ajwain
- 2 tbsp oil or ghee
- Water for kneading
For making Stuffing:
- 1 cup sattu or roasted besan
- 2 tbsp mustard oil
- ½ tsp jeera/cumin seeds
- ½ tsp ajwain/carom seeds
- Salt per taste
- ½ tsp saunf/fennel seeds
- ½ tsp kalonji/nigella seeds
- 1 tbsp finely chopped green chilies
- 1 tsp finely chopped garlic
- 2 tbsp fresh coriander leaves finely chopped
- 1 tsp grated ginger
- ½ tsp lal mirch powder/red chili powder
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- ¼ tsp amchur powder/dry mango powder
- ¼ tsp black salt
- 2 to 4 tbsp of water
Step by step Instructions:
For making dough:
- In a mixing bowl add wheat flour, baking soda, ajwain and salt
- Add hot oil or ghee and nicely crumble the flour
- Now add lukewarm water and start kneading the dough until it becomes smooth and soft
- When the dough is ready, cover with a lid and keep it aside for 15 mins
For making stuffing:
- In a large mixing bowl add sattu (I have taken roasted besan), coarsely crushed jeera and saunf
- Similarly, add crushed ajwain, kalonji along with green chilies, ginger, garlic, coriander leaves
- Now add red chili powder, amchur powder, regular salt, black salt, lemon juice, and mustard oil
- Mix all the ingredients evenly and a little amount of water
- Sattu stuffing should not be too dry or too wet. If you feel the mixture is dry, do add water otherwise while eating it feels dry
For stuffing and shaping litti’s:
- Pinch a small lemon sized ball from the dough and flatten the dough like puri with the rolling pin
- Take 1tbsp of prepared stuffing and place it on the center of the dough
- Lift the dough from all sides and close it nicely giving the dough a round shape with your palms
- Similarly, stuff all the litti’s and cover it with the lid to avoid drying of the dough
Roasting litti’s in appe maker:
- Now, grease the appe maker with ghee nicely to avoid dough sticking and allow it to heat
- 1 by1 place all litti’s in the slots of appe maker (i have 7 slot appe maker)
- Cover and cook for about 10 – 12 mins. check in between if it is getting browned flip the litti’s and let it cook from another side as well.
- Once cooked from both the sides, pour a tbsp of ghee on each litti’s and allow it to absorb the ghee for few seconds.
- Now, remove all the litti’s from the appe maker and litti is ready to serve hot with baigan ka chokha or all mixed chokha.
For making chokha:
- Rinse 1 large eggplant (baingan), 2 tomatoes, and 2 potatoes under running water. Wipe off the veggies with a kitchen towel.
- Make few slits on baingan from all sides and stuff it with few garlic cloves. Make a cross slit on the tomatoes as well.
- Rub the mustard oil all over the baingan and tomatoes as it makes easy to peel off the cover after roasting.
- Now, place it on the wired mesh on a gas stove and roast on low flame.
- Till then, boil both the potatoes till it becomes tender.
- Keep turning the baingan and tomatoes to roast it evenly from all the sides.
- Roast it evenly till it becomes tender, prick a knife in baingan and if the knife slides easily through the baingan without any resistance it means it is cooked perfectly.
- Now, remove the baingan and tomatoes from the stove and with the help of fork and knife peel off its skin and place it a bowl.
- Similarly, peel off the skin of potatoes and keep it in the same bowl. Now, mash all the three ingredients and do not throw the baingan and tomatoes juice.
- Now add 2 chopped green chilies, 3 to 4 tbsp freshly chopped coriander leaves, 1 tbsp grated ginger, 1 tbsp chopped garlic cloves, salt to taste and 2 tbsp mustard oil.
- Mix all the ingredients nicely with the help of a masher.
- You can even add 1 tbsp of lemon juice to get a tangy taste. This is an optional step.
Important tips:
- While serving press litti between your palms to form a small crack in litti and pour a tbsp of ghee over litti’s and serve it hot with mix chokha.
- Try to use sattu for stuffing to get the authentic taste.
