Dahi Baray (yogurt and dumplings)

Ingredients

• 2 cups of Yogurt
• A quarter cup of water
• ½ tsp of crushed roasted cumin seeds
• 1 tsp of crushed chilli flakes
• Sugar ½ cup
• For bara (dumplings)
• ¼ cup of white urad daal/lentil (with husk removed split black lentils, without the coat they are completely white and have a slimy texture when cooked alone) soaked in water over night.
• ¼ cup of gram flour/chick pea flour
• Baking powder 1 tsp
• Salt according to taste
• 1 tsp of chaat masala
• oil for frying
• ¼ tsp of cumin seeds
• Pinch of coriander powder

Method

Step 1

Soak (lentils) urad daal/daal mash in water overnight. Wash the daal maash/urad daal and stain excess water, blend it into a fine white paste, add chick peas chilli powder, salt and baking powder, chaat masala, cumin seeds and if it’s too thick add 2 tbsp of water, it should be like a runny consistency, heat oil to deep fry, take a spoon full of batter and pour it in the hot oil. Leave it to cook till it becomes fluffy and round, take it out. The colour should be golden brown and also should be cooked in through the middle. Mix yogurt, sugar along with water. Pour it in a deep bowl and cover.

Step 2

Now tip the baray into yogurt, and then sprinkle chilli flakes cumin powder, tamarind sauce over it. You can add chick peas too. A tasty starter to begin with!

Tips

If the batter splits in oil it means it’s too thin, Add in small quantity of gram flour to make it thicker. The better the batter is whipped the fluffy the dumplings will come out. Sometimes the dumplings after frying are placed in a bowl of salty warm water for a minute. After a minute excess water is squeezed out of baras/dumplings. Then the dumplings are transferred in yogurt mixture. This is done to avoid lumps in middle of baras/dumplings.