Standing across the street from Gillander House at the Clive Row and N.S. Bose Road crossing - our first destination.
Built for Gillanders, Arbuthnot & Co (established in 1819 as a managing agency), its is now a company in the G.D. Kothari group. The architect was Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel (courtesy http://tinyurl.com/25e9xal)
Vidya Prasad (alias Sadhu Baba) prepares Litti Chokha under a banyan tree opposite Gillander House
Readying a plate of litti chokha
The littis being turned over. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litti_%28cuisine%29
A signature food from Bihar, it is eaten usually as a snack, but can also be a meal onto itself.
Baked gram flour (chhatoo) is mixed with chopped onions, green chillies, lemon juice, daniya (cilantro) leaves and ajwain (thyme). This is placed inside a thick dough of atta (wheat flour) + besan (gram flour) and usually baked on a BBQ as in this case (it can also be deep fried).
In this case, our littis were served with liberal helpings of ghee (clarified butter), mint chutni and aloo (potato) chokha (spicy mashed pototoes).
Baked gram flour (chhatoo) is mixed with chopped onions, green chillies, lemon juice, daniya (cilantro) leaves and ajwain (thyme). This is placed inside a thick dough of atta (wheat flour) + besan (gram flour) and usually baked on a BBQ as in this case (it can also be deep fried).
In this case, our littis were served with liberal helpings of ghee (clarified butter), mint chutni and aloo (potato) chokha (spicy mashed pototoes).
Waiting for our turn at the littis
Littis being prepared. I noted an "innovation" - the barbecuing grills were simply cooling grills from old refrigerators. Interesting!
At the end of our meal, he offered us each a piece of "thekua" saying "Chaat puja ke prasad lijiye" or "Have a bit of Chaat puja's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhath) prasad (sanctified food that has been offered to God)"
Thekua is a popular dry sweet eaten in Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thekua
Thekua is a popular dry sweet eaten in Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thekua
Finally it is ready to eat - the litti off the BBQ, crushed and dipped into ghee (clarified butter) and aloo chokha with pudina (mint) chatni, served up in a bio-degradable saal leaf plate. I'm getting ready to take my tentative first bite of litti chokha
Hailing from Gopalgunj district in north Bihar, Vidya Prasad has been preparing and selling litti chokha under this banyan tree for the last 40 years.
This small shrine stands underneath this banyan tree. As Vidya Prasad pointed out, the little oil-fired earthenware lamp (the glimmer inside the shrine), apparently is never let to go out. Burning 24 x 7, it has been going on for 35 of the 40 something years that he has been there making and selling littis.