Although the winter afternoons are short, the cold weather and the setting sun demand a cup of tea and some snacks.
There are people who do not need winter for cabbage pakora or cauliflower chop. With a variety of vegetables available, the colour is added to the regular noodles. Typical, monotonous instant noodles seem extraordinary with a little ripe tomato, coriander leaves, green peas, carrots.
Matka tea or Tandoori tea has recently become the new centre of interest among tea lovers. And there are few people who do not get thirsty for tea in the freezing weather of winter.
Whether it's a clay pot or a porcelain cup, an afternoon chit-chat or any leisure of winter demands the warmth of a cup of tea.
Of course, the tea recipe varies from person to person. Some people want a lighter blend with more lemon juice; others want more milk and sugar with a strong tea blend.
Apart from this, there is Malai tea, Horlicks tea, Malta tea, Aparajita tea, spice tea, chilli-tea, coffee-tea. In addition to relaxation, spice or lemon tea also has medicinal benefits in winter.
Another appealing name in the list of winter snacks is called vegetable pakora. With potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, tomatoes, coriander leaves, onion sprouts, etc. delicious pakoras can be made with a combination of any vegetables and flour or gram flour.
However, those who love vegetable pakora, eat it more or less all year round. But the very food item touches a different level in terms of taste with varieties of winter vegetables.
Since pitha has a connection with winter, a variety of delicious pitha, made with winter vegetables, can also find their places in afternoon snacks; for instance - vegetable patishapta, vegetable fried-puli, etc.
Vegetable cakes coated with crunchy rice-flour-made layers can be another delicious addition to your evening snacks.
A warm bowl of winter vegetable soup, which is also unique in its nutritional value, can be a snacks solution for those who eat less fried food. Tomato sauce will enhance the flavour of both, whether fried or soup.
You can make tomato sauce at home and the advantage is that you can customise the salty, sweet, sour flavours according to your choice.
It will be difficult to find people who do not suffer from cold or cough once or twice after the onset of the winter season. If you have a runny nose, the food that can give you the most comfort in tongue and nose is a spicy mustard dip with chitoi-pitha and hot chilli-chutney or shutki-bhorta.
Although not everyone has the same spice tolerance capacity, these spicy fillings give a lot of comfort to the taste buds and the stuffy nose.
In addition to tomato sauce, coriander chutney is used to enhance food taste with rice-curry, bread-paratha, or fun snacks.
As fresh coriander leaves are available during winter, the presence of this coriander chutney with snacks can make it even better.
A cup of smoked hot tea with a bowl of ‘muri-makha’ with mustard oil, onion, chilli or spicy egg chop or Beguni-Piyaju, or vegetable pakora with coriander chutney; what else does it take to make a winter afternoon beautiful?
