priya's Bengali vegetable tempura (bora)

No British Bengali household meal of the 90s was ever complete without a few pieces of extra crispy, cooked to perfection, delicious boras (tempura in Bengali)! Usually shallow fried (so probably best not to become a daily staple), pretty much all Bengali households will know how to cook these and will 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 a bora!

I feel boras are the simplest bet yet tastiest food you can have and, therefore, felt it right to have this as our first entry for a Bengali street food recipe. 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.

This dish is a personal fav and I hope you enjoy it too!

ingredients

The following measurements should be sufficient for frying a thinly sliced small aubergine and any other vegetable of a similar quantity:

• Self-raising flour - 100g

• Tumeric - 1tsp

• Water - 150ml

• Salt - for taste (I added 2tsp)

• Your favourite vegetable(s) such as a small aubergine thinly sliced (reminds me of the auntie from Goodness Gracious Me) which, in my opinion, has the best results; broccoli; cauliflower; etc, washed.

• Vegetable oil - enough for shallow frying

Method

• Put the self-raising flour, tumeric, and salt together in a mixing bowl.

• Add the water, bit by bit, and stir the mixture until most of the lumps have dissolved and the batter has a slightly runny consistency - similar to pancake batter consistency

• Dip each vegetable piece into the batter, ensuring that they are fully coated.

• Pour the oil into a frying pan and on a medium heat.

• Once the oil is hot enough, place the batter covered vegetable pieces into the frying pan. You can test whether the oil is hot enough by dipping a small amount of the batter into oil. Once the batter begins to crisp, the oil should be at the correct temperature

• Shallow fry the pieces on one side until golden, then turn them over and repeat on the other side. Multiple pieces can be fried in one batch, but you should ensure each piece has sufficient space to cook and the pieces should not touch.

Best served on their own, or with plain rice and a simple dhal. For a British Bengali twist, why not dip them in good old fashioned ketchup. You can also add chilli powder to the batter to give them a little 'kick' and sesame seeds for bit more of a crunch.