CURRY AND SPICE: BENGALI BONDE

My name is Bond.... James Bond! Aww.... "Ami Bonde... cholbe naki luchi... murir sathey?".... Hi....hi... hi..... This is good enough reason for any real or virtual life Mr. Bond to avoid coming anywhere near me... Oh my God! Ain't I that little girl still who loved wrapping these pearl drop sized, juicy BENGALI BONDE with luchi /poori and finish at least four of these sweet rolls in four minutes? Yes, I am if only my health conditions allowed me to have the tummy satisfying amount, neither would I deprive myself from having a little of everything that I love.... That is the way I make peace with life! I indulge in all kinds of fried stuffs... salted or sweet .... the son seems to have picked up that habit .... He loves jilipi, amriti and this BENGALI BONDE. I thank the Almighty for this.... else it would have been a thing of suspicion that he is mine and that he belongs to a very humble, overly "Bongofied' family on both sides.

I have noticed, this much loved but not that much pedigreed Bengali sweet gets tastier as it travels towards the interior of Bengal, you can always prove me wrong because I draw inferences from assumptions and not extensive researches. The son's love for BENGALI BONDE made our father get fresh bonde everyday from the local shops whenever the son stayed at his "dadun's.... the smiling buro's bari", now the brother gets for him. BENGALI BONDE can be called the nearest cousin of sweet boondi... it is juicer and melt in the mouth whilst sweet boondi, the non-Bengali way is drier and crunchy.... the ingredients used may be same.

Some mornings brings in nostalgia, with it some "shalpatai mora bonde.".... a teen girl asking the man at the counter.... "kaku dusho gram bonde aar roshogolla doshta.... mani boleche tatka dekhe ditey... taratari dao... school jabo".... She was in a hurry for the school but the mother planned for some "luchi... torkari...bonde" for the lunch box. Besides the thrill of opening the yum lunch box, there was other areas of interest in the school which eventually turned out to be nightmarish and I whispered to myself each day... when is the last day?... I do not wish to come back here again! .... May be it was because of the fear of Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics classes...haha! It is 30 and 1/2 years now and time to break that promise! On my next visit to Kolkata, I wish to take a tour of "our school and aaspass."..... no I will not inform one of my dearest friend Kakoli who is a teacher there, neither will ask the brother or Chandrayee to accompany me.... my readers know I am a happy loner. Coming to the point, I have in fact copy pasted this recipe of BENGALI BONDE following few of the bloggers.... but you know there cannot be any other recipe for preparing bonde neither do I have the chance to meet a "haluikar"... a sweet maker sitting here in the island.

You will definitely appreciate the amount of labour I have put in or all of us do put in for all the dishes we prepare. I am not an angel who gives due credit to everyone who I follow.... there are two reasons for this... any heirloom recipe demands more or less same ingredients... the second is "kuch emoson wali baat hai".... I am unable to.... Anyway, for this BENGALI BONDE, which was not actually made in our family, I have drawn inspiration from the following blogs.... Scratching Canvas, our blogger friend Amrita Roy's Motions and Emotions and Mellow N Spicy. The lady at Scratching Canvas has described it with few do's and don'ts which I liked but did not follow, yet the sweet boondis came out really well and authentic. When I am extra cautious, I am surely going to have some serious kitchen blunders, hence! The sweet boondi we get here is the dried ones unlike the ones Bengalis usually have though the Belur Math serves the dry variety as prasadam.... I felt I should try the the original BENGALI BONDE at home.... Now a days, the Kolkata sweet shops are serving baked bonde... I did not taste yet. Usually, two to three food colours are used to prepare BENGALI BONDE and I used icing colours for it.... that too in the xmas season.... haha! The pretty cool self was having a hot mini wok treat yesterday afternoon just to prepare the stomach for a sinful, favourite breakfast platter of "muri.... bonde.... aam"...

Bonde is enjoyed just like that, or with murmura [puffed rice], luchi / poori or you can even have atop bread. While having this BENGALI BONDE, I was actually lost in somewhere far there... "dhulo orano path, bus ta thamlo cha o jol khabarer dokaner pashey.... dada duto kochuri, torkari aar bonde din, sange cha....He asks... didi kothai uthben?... Je bhalobeshe deke dal, aloo bhaja, mach bhaja, lebu, lanka debey... ami tari".... Thats me.... in sharp contrast to someone who hated everything about me.... I still remain the same though... The luchi - bonde or muri-bonde has to be accompanied by few pieces of ripe mangoes and our island supplies this fruit throughout the year! Come let us treat our family / friends with sweet boondi or BENGALI BONDE which requires only few ingredients, of which gram flour and sugar is prime.

Heavily Inspired by....
scratchingcanvas.com
motionsandemotions.com
mellownspicy.com

INGREDIENTS :

Gram flour : 1standard cup
Rice flour : 11/2tbsp
Baking Soda : A pinch
Red Food Colour : 1/2 a pinch [I used icing colour]
Yellow Food Colour : 1/2 a pinch [I used icing colour]
Green Food Colour : A pinch [I used icing colour]
Sugar : 1small cup [coarse grain]
Water : 11/2big cup
Rose Water : 1/2tsp
Lemon Juice : 2tbsp
Green Cardamom Powder : 3-4pinch
Oil : 100gm

I used a "luchir hata"... perforated ladle it is called too?.... but a specific one is used for this purpose I have seen.

METHOD :

Take the gram flour, rice flour and baking soda in a bowl. Mix very well.

Add water little by little until it forms a smooth batter. Make sure there is no lump in the batter.

Now we will divide the batter in to 3 parts taking it in three bowls. We will take little more amount in one than the other two.

Add the yellow food colour to the bowl with more amount of batter. Add the red and green food colour to the other two bowls and mix very well with 3 different table spoons.

Take the sugar and water in a deep bottomed vessel and put for boil at low heat.

Below are the two ladles I used for frying the batter and taking out the fried balls.

Heat the oil in a wok. Hold one ladle atop it and add a tbsp of batter to it and move the table spoon on it in circular motion. The other ladle we will use to take out the fried balls on to a tissue paper. We will neither fry the gram flour balls too much nor let it burn.

We will repeat the same process for the green and red colour batter. You can see not all my balls are round, that is because I was not particular about washing the ladle after each round. It does not matter, as the bonde tasted well.

All the gram flour balls are on the tissue paper now.

Once the sugar syrup gets little sticky, add the rose water and lemon juice. Give a stir for a minute and switch off gas. Add the balls while the syrup is still warm. Stir.