মুসুর ডালের বড়া -- Red Lentil Fritters

 During this pandemic our consumption of rice and lentils has increased and that of fresh vegetables has decreased only to ensure maximum physical distancing and isolation. Therefore, we are having red lentil fritters more often than usual.

We had red lentil fritters tonight also. Two days ago I soaked some lentil and made fritters with some of it. The rest was in the fridge. We had to use it up, too. 

This fritter is super easy to make: soak >make the paste> add salt, a little shredded onion and green chillies, a little turmeric powder > stir, stir, stir to mix well > fry. And Voila! No need to deep fry! The only difficult task is to make the paste if you do it manually using the traditional শিল-নোড়া, the two pieces of stones with which Bengali women have been making pastes of almost everything under the sun since time immemorial!! 😅 But I suggest you use a mixer-grinder. Our mixer is kaputt and cannot take it to the shop for fixing unless the infection rate starts reducing. Almost every day we are at the top of the list in daily infections and death. For the same reason I can't get my spectacles replaced; so, Mom did the frying. Two days ago I did it without my glasses but we shouldn't take such a risk since the entire medical service is under tremendous pressure and treatments to other medical conditions are not happening regularly and so, this is not the most convenient time to have an accident in the kitchen. 

The Paste

Soaked Dal on the Flat Stone(শিল)

Instead of onion I prefer adding nigella seeds. I also don't add turmeric powder. 

Make the shapes flat; then the lentil will cook thoroughly though you don't deep fry. We never deep fry lentil fritters. 

It's heavy and oily. I wouldn't give it to very small children. But it tastes simply out of this world and a very common side dish with জল-ভাত /jawl bhaat/ in summer and a popular traditional part of the Iftaar menu as our poet শামসুর রহমান(Shamshur Rahman) reminds us in his poem 'বাংলাভাষা উচ্চারিত হলে': "নানী বিষাদসিন্ধুর স্পন্দে দুলে / দুলে রমজানী সাঁঝে ভাজেন ডালের বড়া"

Red Lentil Soup + Red Lentil Fritters with Rice

Add Carrot to Onion Fritters

Onion Fritter is a very popular evening snack here. But onion is very costly at the moment! We are paying an equivalent to one euro or more for one kilogram of onion. Secondly, I feel that I have vitamin A deficiency! For theses reasons I wanted to add more carrot to my diet and to my onion fritters! Neither am I a big fan of carrot. Nor do I like "healthy" food deprived off oil and spices!

Carrot-Onion Fritter

I have already posted my onion fritter recipe om this site:  http://kayhavingfeasts.blogspot.in/2015/08/onionfritter-i-crave-for-fried-food.html . 

The same process I follow here, too! Only, the extra ingredient carrot, grated,  is added. One can use both onion and carrot in equal quantity or as one desires. 

Here is the mixture ready to be fried:

Grated Carrot+Shredded Onion+Gram Flour Paste

Below are the fritters frying in the pan. Traditionally theses are deep fried. But I made really flat shapes from the mixture above, so I didn't have to deep fry. I just changed the sides so that both the sides are equally cooked.

Malabar Spinach Fritter

Malabar Spinach Fritter

My friend aptly commented, “I wish I had a snack-gifting aunt!” Oh, it is really bless to have an aunt who is an amazing cook and loves to cook for you!

My aunt sent me some Malabar spinach fritters and it made my evening! She made it herself from scratch, with loads of love and the leaves were freshly collected from her own garden. What could be a better gift for a happy fat vegan?!

Here is how we make it.

We clean the leaves thoroughly and then shred them.

We add salt, a little turmeric powder, a little poppy seeds and shredded onion and green chilli to chickpea flour ("besan" we call it) and mix everything very well.

Now we add water little by little and make a thick paste. We now add the leaves to this paste and mix very well. Thickness of this mixture would be so, that it is possible to make small, flat and round shapes out of it which we deep fry.

We traditionally use mustard oil but you can use sunflower oil, too.

Samosa (Singara in Bengali)

Samosa (or "shingara" in Bengali) is a the very popular traditional Indian snack. Samosa is vegan traditionally since the filling is mainly potato or in winter, cauliflower.One can actually use anything they like for the filling but traditionally potato it is something plant based!I used mashed potato and soybeans for the filling. I cooked everything adding a little cumin powder, shredded onion, chopped green chillies, turmeric powder and salt. You may skip turmeric powder if you are not used to the taste of it.

The Filling: blended ingredients curried and made into a fine spicy puree

I made the dough with maida (bleached and refined flour, very common here and typically used for making these). I added some oil, a little salt, a pinch of red chilli powder (optional) to the dough.
Then I made the cones from the dough, filled with the filling, sealed it and deep fried. 

It was late evening and it was pouring outside every now and then. Our tiny sleepy town looked even more sleepy. It was a perfect weather for enjoying samosa with Darjeeling tea.

Onion Fritter

I crave for fried food. I think I am addicted to fritters. Or, may be, it is my Bengali gene that is responsible for this addiction. Lame excuse? Trying to evade the responsibility for my own deed/folly? Well, visit Kolkata, or any place in West Bengal for that matter! On every street, lane and by-lane you will find since early evening seven days a week one or more, more likely, busy shops selling various types of fritters: onion-, potato-, eggplant- , pumpkin-, coriander leaves- (and other leaves) fritters, and samosa, and vegetable chop (cutlet), even banana flower fritters, and the non-veg ones like fish-, chicken-, mutton-, shrimp cutlets, what not. You have to make your way shoving through a small crowd to reach the shopkeeper to communicate your desire or choices since we don’t have the habit of forming a queue; if we had there would have been a long queue in front of every shop.

Cabbage Pakora

Snacking is easy and fun!

Serves 6 -- 8

Ingredients:

Cabbage – very finely shredded – 500 gm

Besan – chick pea flour (gram flour) 100 gm

Onion – shredded – 100 gms.

Salt

Turmeric powder (optional)

Green chili – finely chopped -- one

Water

Sunflower oil

Sugar – half a tea-spoon

Preparation time: 

15 minutes

Cooking time: 

about 5 minutes on small flame (depending on the size of the frying pan, how many pakoras you can fry at a time)

How to prepare:

Shred the cabbage.

Add salt and sugar (and turmeric powder) to the besan and mix very well.

Add water little by little to this mixture of besan and salt to make a thick paste.

[Or you can add the salt (and turmeric powder) to the water and after the salt is dissolved in it, add this water to besan to make the paste. But do not add salt after mixing besan and water because salt will not mix uniformly in a paste.]

Now mix this paste and shredded cabbage, shredded onion, and finely chopped chilies all very well together.

 Make small flat circular shapes, like tiny pan cakes and dip fry them over low flame. Serve hot with puffed rice (muri).

Cabbage Pakora

Note: While frying you have to make sure that the cabbages are cooked soft enough but not over-fried or burnt. If you have a big pan, you can fry all the pakoras at one go. If your pan is smaller, the cooking time will increase.

If you prefer using less oil, you can also go for shallow fry. Then, make your pakoras flat and turn them over while frying to make sure that they are well cooked from both sides.