Pitla recipe Maharastrian style

 Pitla recipe 

This variety of pitla as it called can be prepared for festivals like Navratri, Varalakshmi Vratham or Ugadi.

The ingredients required are two teaspoons of urad dal, one teaspoon of gram dal, pepper, red chillies

asafoetida and curry leaves.

All the ingredients are roasted in little oil; curry leaves can be roasted separately also. Then grated coconut is added and the mixture is ground into a fine paste.

Sauté with mustard seeds, urad dhall in a tava, add solution of tamarind soaked in water, allow it to boil.

Then add the cooked vegetables - peanuts, beans and carrot slices and let the solution boil.

Finally add already cooked thoor dhall and add salt to taste and boil for a few minutes

We can use different vegetable combinations like yam and chickpeas, bittergourd ( pavakkai ) and peanuts or ground nuts to make this delicious dish.  

Pepper gives a fine flavour to pitla

Pitla recipe South Indian Maharashtrian style

pithla recipe

Urad dhal quantity should a little more than gram dhal. Very little gram dhal is sufficient.

Some make dry powder with the ingredients and store it in a container.  So, they use copra instead of fresh coconut

In my experience, hing blocks give more aroma.  So, I dry roast on a tava and store it in a container.  It is easy to break.

For us it is at the top of the to do check list for most festivals including Ganesha Chathurthi.  This type of pitla I learnt from my mother-in-law.  Though the title says Maharashtrian style, it is actually Tanjore Maharastrian style. I learn that Tanjore Maharashtrians moved to Tamil Nadu and other parts of Southern India three centuries ago.  So, the recipes may have the mixture of flavours of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.