5 mouth-watering dishes of Odisha

Odisha has a culinary tradition spanning centuries. Compared to other regional cuisine, Odia cuisine use less oil and spice. Nonetheless, the taste remains exquisite. The state boasts of a wide range of dishes, from an entirely vegetarian meal to a lip-smacking range of desserts. Majority of the population also relishes sea food that includes fish, prawn and crab. Odia cooks do have quite a prowess to whip a heavenly meal to cater your tummy needs. We Odias do believe in the saying that a full stomach is happy soul. This hungry soul here would like to prepare you a checklist to must have if you are in Odisha anyday.

·         Mahaprasad

This includes 56 food items offered to

Lord Jagannath in Puri temple. So it is also called

Chhapann Bhog. The temple kitchen boasts of being the world's largest kitchen with 400 cooks and 200m hearths that feed 10,000 people daily. The Mahaprasad is of two kinds, sukhila and sankudi. Sukhila includes dry sweetmeats. Sankudi includes includes items like rice, ghee rice, mixed rice, cumin seed and asaphoetida-ginger rice mixed with salt, and dishes like sweet dal, plain dal mixed with vegetables, mixed curries of different types, Saaga Bhaja', Khatta, porridge etc. All these are offered to the Lord in ritualistic ways. It is said that every day 56 types of Prasad are offered to the Lord during the time of worship and all of these are prepared in the kitchens of the temple and sold to the devotees in Ananda Bazaar by the Suaras who are the makers of the Prasad.

·         Pakhala

It is a traditional Odia dish consisting of cooked rice washed or little fermented in water. The liquid part is known as toraṇi. The dish is also popular in other states like West Bengal, Assam, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Tamil Nadu. Pakhala is one of the staple foods of the state. The dish is eaten with sides like fish fry, saga bhaja, badi chura, achar or pickles, papad, and much more. Badi chura regional food item made up of batter of urad or black gram by drying under sunshine as small nuts and then fried to serve. Infact, 20 March is declared Pakhala Dibasa (Universal Pakhala Day) by Odias worldwide. The love for Pakhala is quite immense!!

·         Dahibara aloodum

It is one of the famous street foods of the state.

Cuttack city does take pride in preparing the best dahibara aloodum in the state.

Dahi Bara is fried lentil dumplings in a spicy yoghurt and Aloo dum is a spicy potato curry. The dish is prepared by a fusion of these two and topped with some cut onions, a sprinkling of crunchy sev, coriander and spices such as chilli powder. It is one of the anywhere anytime food for us, Odias.

·         Chhenapoda

It is a cheese dessert from the state of Odisha in eastern

India. The name basically meaning roasted cheese! It is prepared by kneading homemade fresh cheese, sugar or jaggery, cashew nuts and raisins. It is then baked for several hours until it browns. It is a must have in the festivals. This dish has a lot of demand throughout the state. This cake shaped dessert attracts a quite a number of customers in every sweet shop in Odisha.

·         Poori upma

This dish is the most popular breakfast dish in the city of

Berhampur. There is a puri umpa stall everywhere in Berhampur in the morning. It consists of pooris topped with normal upma, masala upma, ghugni, sambar, chutney, and sooji halwa. This is the soulfood of Berhampur.

The state is a perfect blend of cuisines in the country with its own delicacies. The areas near to the borders of

West Bengal have a tinge of Bengali cuisine in them. The same goes for the states nearing south. Living away from the state makes us Odias crave for these meals. A lot. This foodie here requests you to try out these dishes once if you are in the state anyday.