priya's bengali lentil fritters (daler bora)

Whenever I see a few pieces of these on the table I can never resist overindulging in these. Daler Bora (or Lentil Fritters is the closest translation I could find to English): so simple, yet so tasty! There is probably not a single Bengali household that doesn't have their own, finely refined, recipe that they follow. So this is not aimed at those households. This post is aimed at those who haven't been so lucky to have their family recipe handed down to them, find themselves 'out of the home' for the first time for uni or work, or have never tried Daler Bora.

This is my mum's personal recipe and as a lot of you will know: first generation Bengali mums have an encyclopedic knowledge of 100s if not 1,000s of delicious Bengali recipes and my mum is no exception. With cooking so intuitive to her, she is also not much of a 'measurement' person so when discussing this recipe, mum provided measurements in the form of 'handfuls' and 'pinches', so I have translated this for us mere mortals where cooking is not yet intuitive.

Give it a go and I hope you enjoy it!

ingredients

The following measurements should be sufficient for a few portions to be eaten as a side dish or snack:

• One cup of masoor dal (red split lentils)

• One small onion

• Tumeric - 0.5 tsp

• Mixed poweder - 1 tsp

• Salt - for taste (I added 1tsp)

Extras, as desired

• Chilli powder or one green chilli

• Coriander leaves

Method

• Soak the lentils in cold water, overnight.

• Blend the lentils in a blender (or if you have time and the strength, manually grind) until almost (but not quite) a paste.

• Finely chop the small onion.

• Drain the lentils, a sieve tends to work well.

• Add the lentils, chopped onions, tumeric, mixed powder, and salt and mix in a bowl.

• Add sufficient amount of oil (I used vegetable oil) into a pan for deep frying.

• Test the oil temperature with one piece of onion and if it starts to fry and rise to the top, the oil temperature is sufficient for frying.

• Get a portion of the daler bora mix into your palms and roll and flatten into small flat circular pieces.

• Place the pieces into batches into the pan, ensuing there is sufficient space between the pieces so the edges do not touch.

• Deep fry until golden brown (or until fully cooked inside).

Best served the traditional Bengali way with plain rice and with a simple dal. For a British Bengali twist, why not serve them on their own as a snack and dip them in chilli and garlic sauce, washed down with a glass of cold fiery ginger beer. For those that love a 'kick' to their food, you can also add chilli powder/green chillies.