East Indian-Recipes
East Indian-Recipes it consist of Cuisine from the states of Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal. The states of Orissa and West Bengal share some cultural and linguistic characteristics with Bangladesh and with the state of Assam. Bengali is the dominant language of West Bengal, spoken by well over 80 million people. Hindi has the largest number of speakers at over 90 million but has little linguistic influence outside Bihar. The other important language is Oriya, the dominant language of the east coast. The majority of the population of East India is Hindu with Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and Sikh minorities. Durga and Jagannath are particularly popular Hindu deities in this region. Orissa is the eastern center for pilgrimage in Hinduism. Puri is one the four holy Temples". City/Dham of Hindu religion and Bhubaneswar is considered to be the "City of Temples”
East Zone of India is a hot mix of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. Cultural and lingual diversity along with rich histories and geographic heterogeneity of the encompassing states makes the cuisine of this zone unique and unsurpassable.
Fetish of the people of west Bengal of or fish, rice and sweet is legendary and contributes a significant lot to the popular cuisine of not just east zone but also the national cuisine of India. Part of Orissa also share the love for fish and rice with the state of West Bengal due to the long coastline the duo states shares on the Bay of Bengal. Fish and other sea food are in plenty in this region and so are the recipes.
People in Bihar and Jharkhand love their platter with all the colours of seasonal vegetables which grow in abundance and rich variety here. Influence of Buddhism is apparent here as majority of the population practice vegetarianism. The state came under the influence of mighty Mughals once and naturally the famous Mughal cuisine left its mark here too.
What unites Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa is the magical mix of seeds used for tempering dishes. Known as 'Panch Phoran', the mix consists of aniseed, mustard, fenugreek seed, cumin seed and black cumin seed.
East Indian recipe (from state of Orissa)
Poda Pitha
Ingredients
• 500 gm: Black gram dal (Urad Dal)
• 500 gm: Rice
• 1 medium size: Coconut (whole)
• 500 gm: (Guda) jiggery / sugar
• 2 teaspoonful: Salt
• 2 inches (15gms): Ginger
• 1 tsp: pepper powder
• 2 tsp: Ghee
Method
Soak black gram dal and rice for about six hours. Wash the dal and rice cleanly and grind it. The paste should be fine and thick. Add salt and mix well. Keep paste aside for 2/3 hours. Grate the coconut. Cut ginger into very small cub sizes. Then mix coconut, jiggery/sugar, ginger and black pepper powder and mix wellPre-heat oven for 10 minutes and grease it with ghee. Pour the paste into the tray and keep it in the oven. Keep the oven very hot for 30 minutes. Then keep it moderately hot for 30 minutes. It should be checked with a needle and when its colour is golden brown the Poda Pitha is ready to eat. Then remove the whole Poda Pitha (baked ) from the oven and allow it to cool down. Cut it into small pieces and serve it with any chutney preferably with coconut chutney.
