There’s many a slip between the cup and lip. One of the many slips (or at least cause of delay between the cup and the lip) is a food blogger with a camera :D.

Oh Poor Harry, he (with a grumbling tummy) stands next to me while I click and click and click away with a look of frustration/concentration on my face. I show him the pictures cribbing how bad they are, while the whole time he would be drooling at the food. Taking photos of food rich in flavor and aroma are almost killers for him. Imagine standing next to yummy aromatic food when you are hungry, and yet not being able to eat it. Torture..pure torture…

Bebo has a different reaction to my taking food photos. He and his friend Mittu (our 5 year old neighbour), bring chairs for themselves, with a request to take their picture with the food. I get to the food only after taking a dozen photos of the two of them first :-)))). Thank god for digital cameras!

Puris are Harry’s absolute favorites – He LOVES them and I never make them :D. I am really scared about handling hot oil. But this time I thought I will give it a try. After all, love makes you do crazy things – the least I can do is to make puris for my hubby. And lets make Luchis, instead of puris (all purpose flour instead of whole wheat). And since I am anyway making them, I can as well enter it for the ‘Flavours of Bengal’ event hosted by Priya. The event was started by Nayna of Simply Food.

I didn’t even think twice about switching from whole wheat to all purpose flour – I figured that if I am deep frying them, I can as well chuck out the wholegrain factor. I made Cholar Dal and Kadai Paneer to go with the Luchis. Cholar Dal is not an everyday dal for Bengalis. Its made on special occasions like weddings and birthdays. Kadai Paneer was a back up, since Harry doesn’t usually like Dals. But he really liked this one!

I read up a bit about Bengali food, I found Sandeepa’s Bong Mom’s CookBook to be nice, informative and interesting. The recipe for Luchi is adapted from there. I adapted Cholar dal recipe from Mallika’s Quick Indian Cooking – an absolutely lovely blog! I really love her writing style :)

Recipe for Luchi 

Ingredients: 

Method:

1. In a big bowl, add the flour and salt and mix nicely.
2. Add the oil and start adding the water. Kneed with your hands.
3. Add water in 1/4 cups in the beginning and once the dough starts coming together, add the water in tablespoons.
4. The dough should be soft, but firm. It shouldn’t be soggy. In case it is, add a little bit of flour.
5. Make small balls of the dough and roll them not too thin circles, about 4 -5″ in diameter.
6. Donot dredge the Luchis in flour, as you would for chapathi. Use oil, if needed.
7.  Heat oil for frying in a deep pan. Wait for the oil to become hot, but not smoking hot.
8. Dip an end of the luchi into the oil. In case the end bubbles up, the oil is ready.
9. Deep fry in the oil. When it puffs up, flip over with a slotted spatula.
10. Take out, keep in a paper napkin.
11. Fry the rest of the luchis the same way and serve with Cholar dal.

Cholar Dal Ingredients 

Method