Kucho Chingrir Bora is a Bengali delicacy, and like many other traditional Bengali dishes, we’ve stopped making it, which we must not. It doesn’t take much time to prepare a small batch of bora for 2-3 people. If you loved how your Grandma used to make this, then you must make some now.
Crispy, Crunchy, these boras are addictive on every bite. The taste from the small prawns, the amalgamation of freshly prepared ingredients, and the aroma of mustard oil, everything come together beautifully and make these boras so much more special to devour.
It doesn’t take much time to clean them, as these are so tiny prawns that cleaning them individually is impossible. Wash them well under running water, and then you’re good to go with the bora preparation. Most of the antennas (we call them chingrir sur in Bengali) of the small prawns come out during the wash, if some of them remain and you eat them in bora, that doesn’t harm, this is what my mother used to tell me when I was a kid, and quite picky about them.
If you try this easy recipe to make some Kucho Chingrir Bora at home, please share your experience with me. 🙂
Why add Rice flour to the Bora mixture?
After mixing all the ingredients, the Kucho Chingrir Bora mixture tends to release moisture and becomes a little wet as you go on with the frying. So, it might get tricky to shape up the bora and make the tiny prawns stick to the mixture. We don’t want to add more lentil paste here because we want to make bora out of prawns, not lentils. Rice flour does wonders in this scenario, it locks the moisture due to the starch in it and makes the bora crispier.
Kucho Chingrir Bora / Bengali Small Prawn Fritters
Kucho Chingrir Bora is a Bengali delicacy. Crispy, Crunchy, these Small Prawn Fritters are addictive on every bite. Serve them with Dal-Rice, or eat as snacks.
Ingredients
- 250g- Kucho chingri / Fresh small prawns
- 110g- Masoor dal / Red lentils
- 3 tbsp- Chaler guro / Rice flour
- 1 tsp- Ginger paste
- 2½ tbsp- Garlic paste
- 6- Chopped Green chillies (adjust as per your taste)
- ½ tsp- Kalojire / Kalonji / Nigella seeds
- 1 tsp- Turmeric powder
- Salt to taste
- Mustard oil for frying
Instructions
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Wash masoor dal in a bowl under running water, 3-4 times. Now soak the dal in water for 2-3 hours.
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Discard the water and transfer the soaked dal to a food processor or mixer/grinder. Make a coarse paste of the dal, don’t add any water to it while making the paste, keep it aside.
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Wash the prawns and keep them over a strainer for some time, so that the liquids from the prawns can drain out well.
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In a bowl add the prawns, masoor dal paste, rice flour, salt, kalojire, garlic paste, ginger paste, green chillies, and turmeric powder.
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Mix well with a spoon.
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Heat 1 cup oil in a kadai, and start making bora by dropping small portions from the bora mixture into hot oil. Make sure to give a flat, roundish shape to the portions of bora mixture while dropping them in oil. Otherwise, bora will not get cooked thoroughly from the inside. Fry them over low-medium heat until golden brown in colour, drain over paper napkins.
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Serve immediately as a side with rice, dal. Kucho Chingrir Bora also tastes great if you only mix and eat them with steamed rice. You can also serve these fritters as snacks with Bengal’s favourite mustard sauce Kasundi, Enjoy!
