Puri Visit

Puri,Odisha

 On our recent visit to Puri, Orissa, we spent some quality time with friends and relatives, had Oriya and Bengali dishes and paid a visit to the holy temple of Lord Jaganath.

If I am not blogging or cooking, what you will find me doing is travelling as that's what I love the most. I think everybody loves travelling to new places like me so I am sharing some photos here .

Visit to the Temple was an experience in itself . We contacted a panda (local priest) who came to take us with him to show us around the temple, but as we were in the relaxing holiday mood we got delayed and when we reached, there was a huge queue. Standing in the queue for an hour and more, wasn't a very good experience. Just at the entrance, the crowd, the heat, the pushing ( From all sides), the noise....everything got so unbearable that we decided to return another day and left the Temple premises.

Puri visit is incomplete without a visit to Lord Jaganath
 temple and so we decided on visiting again.
This time it was early morning.
The experience was wonderful.
We saw the temple priests carrying water to bathe

          Lord Jagannath. Other priests were performing other tasks,and our priest explained that they were brushing His teeth and washing His face and combing His hair.These were all done in the main temple just under the actual large wooden idols of Lord Jaganath, Goddess Subhadra and Lord Balram.

Chilka Crab we choose

Crabs

 Crabs, Boat ride to see the Dolphins and pearl harvesting , are what attracted us to Chilka lake and we weren't disappointed.

Local shops cooked various varieties of fresh fishes and of course crabs. You don't order from the menu. They bring it out to you and you choose. 

You choose and they cook according to your tastes. The tender meat is so fresh and tasty....Wow !! 

The real secret, we would like to believe is in choosing the right crab but in actual its the simple recipe used.

Pearl Harvesting

We purchased pearls at throw away prices and
now its on our ears.... we wear them with pride.

Lovely white and black ones....

Boat ride on Chilka Lake

Boats at Chilka Lake

 We had delicious Crab at Chilka lake. I asked for the recipe made by the cook there and he said shyly," Its a simple recipe." When I persisted he gave me this....
Clean the crab well. Drop into boiling water and then leave. This will seal the juices inside.
I don't fry the crabs.
In a wok, heat 2 tbsp mustard oil and  fry onion paste, ginger-garlic paste and green chilly paste well.
Add tomato paste. He showed me that he had used a stone motar and pestal for grinding.
Add Turmeric paste, Coriander paste, Cumin paste, Red chilly paste, Salt as per taste and Sugar as per taste.
Fry well till oil separates and rises to the top. Then add the crab with the water and let it come to a boil.
He waited for the right consistency of the gravy and then served it right away with plain boiled rice.
There was not too much gravy to this dish and the end product was delicious. 
Fresh live crabs were kept in buckets for you to choose from. Once you choose its taken away to the kitchen to be cooked for you. 

Crab Masala