Food Industry
How connected
Ritabrata Industries (RI) is helping village women to be financially independent. RI purchases raw material, pass to the village women and then again purchase back their product. These women get earning without any capital investment.
The Bengali Bori or Bodi made is an excellent addition to vegetables and even fish curries. Dal-er-Bori or বড়ি is a unique way of preserving lentils by making sun-dried dumplings out of them. Bengali dal-er-Bori recipe is mostly made of Kolai dal or urad dal, which is also known as white lentils. Soaked dal is coarsely ground and left to ferment before laying it out in the sun in the form of small dumplings spread over a cloth or mat.
Ingredients of Bengali Dal Bori should be in this ratio as follows:
- 2 Cups Masoor Dal
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/2 tsp Kalonji
- 2 Tbsp Oil
How to Make Bengali Dal Bori
- Begin by washing the dal properly, and then soak it for at least six hours, and more if necessary. Once that's done, grind the dal in processor really well. Make sure there's not too much water in it though. The idea is to get a thick paste-like dough.
- Now take the salt and the kalonji and add it to the paste. You need to whip the mixture hard, so that the batter becomes light.
- Taking a little mixture in your hand and making tear drop shapes on a bamboo made mat and putting them out in the sun to dry. Sometimes metal made round nozzle also used to beatify and proper shaping.
- It takes couple of days in the sun for the dumplings to dry; keep it out for longer if it takes time.
- When it's ready it should be completely dry; crush one in your hand if it crumbles easily, it's done. You can store these in an airtight container for a few days.
- To cook with it, you need to gently sauté it in oil before adding it in anything.
- Bengali Dal Bori keeps well for a year or two if you store them in cool and dry place. The recipe can be made of both Masoor and Moong dal, in both the cases use skinned dal. Use the same procedure while using Moong as well.
How do you know that the Dal er Bori is ready to be stored?
Once they dry up, you will see the edges peeling away from the sheet below. To make sure that the dal er Bori has dried out completely inside out, we laid them out again the next day on a plate. Only this time turning them over so that the base and the inside of the Boris get some sunshine.
Make-ahead or Storing Option
By the end of the 3rd day, our Kolai daler Bori was ready to be stored in an airtight container. We placed the jar in a cool and dry place so that it can last us a couple of months. If you love Kolai dal er Bori in your dishes, then I would suggest you make a bigger batch of this dal er Bori recipe during the summer and store it for later use. Not only these Boris are hygienically made, but they also come out to be much cheaper than the store-bought ones.
You can use a variety of options to lay out
these Bengali daler Bori on, out in the sun.
Here, we have used bamboo made mat to lay the Boris on. Once the entire daler Bori batter has been divided into small Boris, these mats are laid out in the sun. Thus, ensuring that it got uninterrupted sunshine throughout the day. Here, it took two days of sunshine when the daytime temperature hovered somewhere around
18 to 25 °C, to dry these up completely. It usually takes 2-3 days to get them ready during the winter, and once done they can easily last for a year or so in the dry pantry. These can be fried and served along with a dal and rice or added to numerous vegetable-based and fish-based Bengali dishes. Making this daler Bori recipe in Bengali style is both an art as well as science.
Bori manufacturing happens in winter months, between December to January, i.e., manufacturing is limited to 2 months only. If there are cloudy days, then Bori manufacturing to be stopped. Bori manufacturing is quire time consuming and length process.
Plastic has never been used for Boris manufacturing. Plastic use is limited to packing and transportation only.
Jute Mat
Linen Cloth
Steel Plate
Wicker Mat
Foil Paper
Registration ID: 22822046000276
Recipes that use Dal er Bori in Bengali cooking
Bori Bhaja
Shukto
Aloo Uchhe Jhal
Palong shaker Ghonto
Lau er Ghonto
