Kachari (Fritters) – Ghughani

• Servings: 4
• Soaking time: 6 hours.
• Preparation time: 10 minutes.
• Frying time: 10 minutes.
• Cooking time: 15 minutes.
• Total time: 35 minutes.

“Kachari (Fritters) – Ghughani “is often cooked in my parent’s house as evening snacks; ‘kachari’ is nothing but a kind of bhajia (fritters) prepare with soaked lentil and ‘Ghughani’ is chickpea dish.  It is an authentic popular evening snacks or street food mainly from Indian state of Bihar, West Bengal but popular all over Indian subcontinent.

It is protein rich legume food, keep you full for longer period. It is not only delicious but delightful dish too; during Ramadan fasting, iftar cannot be considered complete without this in Indian and Bangladeshi home where it is served piping hot.

It is time to break your fast and celebrate this auspicious month with something traditional.

Wishing you and your family a fabulous Eid in advance…

Ingredients for Kachari:

• Masoor Dal (Red Lentil) or chana dal (split Bengal gram): 100gm
• Salt: ½ teaspoon (as per your taste)
• Turmeric powder: ¼ teaspoon
• Ajwain (caraway): ¼ teaspoon
• Kuti Mirch( crushed chilli): ½ teaspoon
• Onion: 1 no. (Small)
• Garlic: 3-4 cloves
• Green chilli: 1 no.
• Mustard oil: for frying

Preparation:

1. Soak dal for 1 -2 hours, grind them roughly, with help of small quantity of water if required.
2. Chop green chilli, garlic and onion, keep aside.

Method:

1. Take a mixing bowl, put dal paste chopped green chilli, garlic, onion, turmeric powder and salt, mix properly. Now batter is ready.
2. Take heavy bottom wok/fry pan, put oil in the fry pan, and let oil to smoke; drop small size batter in it. (Either directly using your fingers or spoon), If batter comes up, it means right temperature of oil otherwise wait for a while and test again.
3. After getting right temperature of oil; deep fry all fritters (size of your choice), till golden brown. Remove from oil, repeat this till all batter is finished.
4. Kachari Masoor Dal (Red Lentil Fritters) is ready. Serve piping hot.

Ingredients for Ghughani:

• Black Chick Peas (kala chana): 300 gm.
• Onion: 1no. (Medium)
• Tomato: 1 no. (Small, optional)
• Green chilli: 2 no.
• Ginger: 2”piece
• Garlic: 3-4 clove
• Cumin: 1 teaspoon
• Whole red chilli: 1 no.
• Dry masala: (red chilli: 2-3 no, coriander: 1 tablespoon, cumin: 1 teaspoon and Black pepper: 8-10 no.)
• Salt: 1 ½ teaspoon
• Turmeric powder: ½ teaspoon
• Cooking oil/ Mustard oil: 4-5 tablespoon
• Garam masala powder: ½ teaspoon
• Lemon: 1 no.
• Green coriander: 1 table spoon

Preparation:

• Soak chickpea minimum 6 hours or overnight, keep aside.
• Chop onion into small pieces, keep aside.
• Dry roast all dry masala on lower flame, cool and grind to powder, keep aside.
• Grind ginger, garlic and green chilli to prepare wet masala paste, keep aside.

Method:

1. Take wok (kadhahi) heat oil; add cumin and red chilli sputter it for few seconds; add chopped onion, stir fry on medium flame till onion turns translucent.
2. Add turmeric powder and prepared dry masala powder, tomato and wet masala paste; continue to fry on medium flame until oil separates from the masala.
3. Add soaked chickpea stir fry for couple of minutes at medium flame; add two cups of water, bring to boil, reduce to low flame and cook until done (10-12 minutes) with lid on.
4. Add salt; continue to cook on high flame till it gets semi dry in consistency (about 2 minutes), Put off the flame.
5. Add lemon juice and Garam masala powder; “Ghughani dry (Black Chick Peas/Bengal Gram) dry” is ready to be served with chopped raw onion.

Kachari (Fritters) – Ghughani by Nag Ratna Sahu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.