What to make when you can’t find palm for taler bora?
Tal/Palm fruit is to Bengali Augusts what pumpkin is to American Octobers: no one likes it but everybody wants it (albeit there are some folks who actually love palm). The traditional Bengali taler bora is the quintessential janmastami bhog. It was janmastami last week, and just like any other year since I moved to the US in 2009 (first Texas and then NY/NJ), I have physically searched and searched every local Asian grocery store and online for palm fruit and have failed. I am certain that if I can’t find something in New York City, I probably won’t find it anywhere in the US. So I gave up my tal/palm quest last week and decided to put the overripe mangoes sitting on the kitchen counter to some good use and made aam boras instead. They were pretty delicious! If you love mangoes as much as I do, you will love these!
Aamer bora or sweet mango fritters
Ingredients
- 1 cup mango pulp fresh or canned
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tbsp rice flour optional
- 1/2 cup grated coconut fresh or frozen
- 1/3 cup sugar or to taste
- oil for deep frying canola or vegetable
Instructions
- Mix all the ingredients in a non reactive bowl. You want to aim for a pancake or malpua like consistency. Add more flour or mango pulp to achieve the desired consistency. The batter will be a little thinner than taler bora batter.
- Heat sufficient oil in a deep pan.
- Using a teaspoon or fingers, take a little bit of the batter and drop it in hot oil. You can fry several at a time but try not to overcrowd the pan. Take out the boras as soon as they turn golden brown; preferably in the order that you dropped them.
- Serve hot or at room temperature.
Dhrubaa Mukherjee--An academic by profession, a contributor to Huffington Post, a dancer by passion, a compulsive foodie, a former flight attendant, and a constant traveler, I am, what they call, a transnational gourmand (gourmet?). I am not only fascinated by the tastes, colors, textures and aromas of food, I am equally intrigued by the histories, traditions and cultural inter-junctions that drive/influence recipes.
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