Once upon a time in a small town, there lived a woman who knew only one breakfast to prepare. Arisi upma. And everyday she prepared it with a lot of love for her husband. But after eating it day in and day out, the husband was bored with the dish. He decided to take her to a restaurant nearby to show her that there are dishes beyond upma.
So off they went to a fancy restaurant. He ordered a porridge/pudding from the menu. And with great expectations, they bit into their lovely looking, all dressed up porridge.
….and the wife blurted out,”Upma!”
The scene above is not unlike my experience with this chilka roti and chana dal chutney. I didn’t believe Jharkhand dishes would taste like our everyday South Indian recipes. But one bite into this roti and I blurted out,”Ada dosa!”
And a bit of chutney had me shouting,”Parippu thogayal!”
It’s amazing that people in two different zones of the country have come up with very similar dishes. Our South Indian Adai dosa has a combination of lentils and this chikli roti has only chana dal.
The chutney tasted really close to our thogayal which is made of a toor dal and chana dal combination. Though this chutney goes well with the roti, I felt it would pair well with rice and a more gravy-ish chutney would be suited for the roti. This is again because my taste buds are tamed to that way of eating. No other reason.
The Menu:
- Chilka Roti : A dosa/pancake like preparation. Rice and chana dal (split gram) are soaked and ground together for the batter.
- Chana dal ki Chutney : A thick chutney prepared with chana dal, coconut and red chillies.
My Kitchen Trials 
As far as I know We make Chilka rotis in our home are made without chana dal and it is purely made of rice batter.
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Thank Sushma for letting me know. Please do share a recipe if you have one. Cheers!
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yes ,I am from Ranchi. its the same way cooking chhilaka by my Nani
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gooog kitchen nice recipies
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LOL! I can relate to your reaction and the wife in your narration. It is indeed amazing how the food tastes so similar in different parts of the country despite being miles apart. Chilka and chutney look delicious! I like the container in which you served the chutney
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Beautiful clicks Rajani. Love both the rotis and the chutney — very healthy and delicious.
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That’s why we have unity in diversity Rajani. As usual teh pics are amazing.
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I totally agree that there are slight variations of the varieties but essentially they are the same all over adapted to regional availability.
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Love your upma story and it’s been the same experience at home as well..most things I ended up making, had some resemblance to our cuisine..lovely pictures are always..
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As Gayathri mentioned a perfect breakfast there.
And it has been a revelation to me as well that we have similar tasting dishes with little differences across the country.
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Looks like a perfect breakfast menu. Couldn’t take my eyes off that terracotta pot with coffee…
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yes very true. just the names are different. lovely pictures. love that chutney pot
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Loved your story in the intro. Beautiful pictures and the little pots are so cute.
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That’s so true ! Dishes which are so Similar but go by different names ;-)) with your writing style and penchant fr great clicks, you should write a book soon, Rajani
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As always loved reading the post, with those well presented clicks…everything looks so well made .
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Wonderful presentation and love your props..
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lol so funny,couldnt stop myself smiling when i read about that upma story., yea sometimes our foods have some ressembles with other region na, chilka rotis and chutney looks prefect pair for a breakfast.
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oh that chai matka… looks so authentic and apt there.. this chilka roti is very interesting and tempting
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