List of Lentils

I am a perpetual planner and to-do list-maker. I typically have running lists of tasks in my phone, on post-it notes, in my notebook, and of course, in my head. While I do not always get to everything on my lists, I find that noting/writing things down helps me stay organized and checking off items from the lists gives me a sense of accomplishment. Those little moments of personal satisfaction have been hard to come by these past two months. At work, I feel like we are all in limbo. Unsure of what lies ahead, we cannot really plan for the future. And, since there is no plan in place, there are no lists to be made. The home front has similar uncertainties: How are our finances? What will the kids do over the summer? What will next school year look like? How will college applications work in these circumstances? There are no clear answers to any of these questions. So, planning and making lists seem futile.

While it is liberating to not always be anticipating, planning, and identifying solutions to problems, the actual act of letting go has taken some personal effort and collective processing: "We are all in this together, so don't think you are the only one who is lost..." "If it makes you feel any better, I have the same problem..." "We don't have good answers to any of these questions..." " We don't know what the new normal will look like." It appears that in the face of all-round uncertainty, it is now acceptable to say "I do not know" and not be judged as a slacker.

Since I have little control over the rest of my life, I decided to take stock of my pantry and list the different kinds of beans and lentils that I have on my shelves. I counted nine varieties that can be seen in the picture above (from left to right): black lentil, red lentil, red kidney beans, chick peas, black gram, husked and split yellow moong, whole moong, (front row, left to right): split peas, husked and split black lentil. This impressive array is not a result of lockdown hoarding. Lentils and beans regularly feature in our food, so, this is part of our regular stock. In fact, we are missing another regular from this lentil line-up -- chana daal. I wish I had that in stock to get us to the nice round number of ten lentils!

Anyway, lentils are an integral part of Indian food, often serving as the key protein in vegetarian meals. Typically cooked as daals/soups in which the lentil/bean is cooked and then tempered with spices, lentils are also used in other forms -- soaked and fermented lentil goes into making crispy dosas and fritters, dried chick peas are ground to produce chick pea flour that is often used as a binding agent, lentils are added to vegetable stir fries to add flavor and texture, and sometimes, lentils are used in sweets. As in this Roshbora (Dumpling in Syrup) that uses husked, split black lentils.

Roshbora is one of my husband's favorites. In Bengal, every family has a signature sweet dumpling that is made during the winter months. In his family, that happens to be Roshbora. It is an easy recipe, but the devil is in the details, like the texture of the ground lentil to get perfectly crunchy dumplings and the proportion of sugar to water to get a light syrup that seeps into the dumplings. Done right though, a pot full of these light, delightful dumplings are addictive and will disappear in no time.





What You Need (For 4 cups of dumplings and syrup):
11/2 cup urad daal (husked, split black lentils)
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp ground fennel seeds
Neutral oil for frying

Directions:
Wash lentils thoroughly in three changes of water, draining off the cloudy residue.

Place washed lentils in a bowl. Pour enough water to cover all the lentils. Soak overnight or at least four hours.

The lentils should absorb most of the water. Drain any excess water from the bowl.

Place soaked lentils in a food processor and grind to a grainy paste. If your food processor is small, grind lentils in batches. Add two tbsp water at a time to get your food processor going. Be careful not to add too much water. This will result in a runny paste that will be difficult to shape into dumplings. The paste you are aiming for will not have any whole grains of lentil, but still have some texture.

Add ground fennel seeds to the ground lentil and beat for 2-3 minutes with a wire whisk. Cover and set aside for 30 minutes.

Bring two cups of water and 2 cups of sugar to a boil in a wide mouthed pot, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add cardamom powder and remove from heat.

Heat enough oil in a pan to deep fry dumplings. Each dumpling will use 1 tbsp of lentil paste, so estimate the level of oil based on that.

Beat the lentil paste for another minute. Test the oil by adding a drop of the batter to the pan. If the batter rises gradually to the surface, the oil is ready.

Drop batter, 1 tbsp at a time into the hot oil, being careful not to splatter. You can add as many dumplings as the size of your pan allows, but do not crowd pan.

Cook the dumplings till they are golden brown all over. As they cook, the dumplings will fluff up a little. Gently flip them over so that all sides are evenly cooked.

Remove cooked dumplings from oil with a slotted spoon and drop them into the warm syrup. You will hear a gentle hiss as the hot dumplings soak up the warm syrup.

Fry the dumplings in batches and keep adding them to the syrup. If the syrup pot is too crowded, move the first batches of dumplings (which by now should be plump with optimal syrup absorption) to your serving bowl. Add the new batch of dumplings to the remaining syrup in the pot.

After all dumplings are fried and dunked in syrup, move them to your serving bowl and pour remaining syrup over the dumplings.

Serve dumplings warm with a generous helping of syrup.