Along with the festive season comes the yummy sweet and salty stuff that just can't be resisted, I have stopped bothering about gaining weight, I will think about it next year!
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| Taler Bora |
Here are some more of my favourite home-made sweets and snacks for the festive season. You can also check out my earlier post on some of the
lesser known Bengali home made sweets.
Taler bora: This Bengali sweet is made during Janmashtami. That is the time you can get a lot of ripe palm fruits in the market. It is actually easy to make. The tough and the messy part is squeezing out the juice from the plam fruit. Once that is done, it is pretty simple. Just mix refined flour, semolina, rice flour, grated cocunut and sugar to the juice. Some people like to add mashed bananas to the mix, but that really depends on you, if you want the banana flavour you can add it to the mix.
The mix prepared needs to be on the thicker side because small portions need to be deep fried.
The result is absolutely yummy, I love it. Some people find it a bit bitter perhaps but I find the flavour very yummy! It is actually off-season now, but I have frozen some of the palm juice and I am still enjoying taler bora, talk about greed!
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| Nimkis, Bengali snacks |
Nimki: Another favourite of mine, a crispy and salted snack, Nimki, is something that gets prepared in many Bengali households during festivals. Infact, Nimki and Narkoler naru (coconut laddus) are quite popular during Durga pujas. Nimkis are simple to make, you need maida (refined flour), flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, kalonji, water and oil. Kneading the whole mix into a dough and rolling out the dough into thick parathas is the critical part. The rolled out parathas are then cut into small pieces, typically, rhombus shaped and deep fried. In order to make the nimkis crisp, you will need to add oil during kneading the dough.
Though none of these are healthy, I think it is okay to indulge in these sweet and salty nothings once in a while. What say you?
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