Leafy Green Fritters with Tamarind & Chilli Dip (Burma)

These fritters looked amazing in the recipe book but it wasn't until Soph realised just how easy the recipe was that we decided to make it.

For the leafy greens, Allegra says to use a leaf like Bok Choy. Now, we have seen and bought Bok Choy here before. Unfortunately however, we couldn't track any down on the day we needed it. So instead we went on a hunt for greens that may be similar to it. We bought a green cabage at the market and then, later in the week, Soph found Mangold. We decided to use a combination of both of these for our leafy greens. 

So, having sorted out our ingredients, we started making the batter. This was the strangest batter we've made to date. It consists of Yoghurt, turmeric, corriander and salt. 




You whisk all of these together and then coat the greens in it. At this point, we decided that we had probably cut the leafy greens too big, and attacked them with some scissors to make them a better size.  


It definitely seemed like an interesting approach but I can't say I wasn't concerned for the outcome at this stage. 

We finally tracked this paste
down on Amazon of all places!

Whilst the fritters were frying away, we started work on the dip.  The main ingredient for the dip is Tamarind paste. This is something which neither Soph nor I had ever heard of. It had been on our list of things to try and track down since the start of the challenge but was actually surprisingly easy to find on Amazon (I'm not sure what we'll use the rest of it for though). 

Just a few of my least
favourite things

The rest of the ingredients are Chilli, lime juice, fish sauce, and corriander. I'm sure it won't surprise you to hear that I was not convinced that this would be a winning combination. 

Combining all of the ingredients for this it seemed very odd that it would be called a "dip". It had a lot of chunks; possibly because I'm not good and finely chopping things. Especially chilli.  Soph had to do the chillis. I was definitely not looking forward to this dip at all.

Our fritters didn't look particularly like the picture in the book. The only reason we could see for this was the greens we used. They unfolded in the oil and split apart. We probably also cut them a little too small in the end. Allegra said that they should slip of a spoon into the oil and we basically had to try and scrunch them into ball shapes before dropping them in in order for them to stand a chance at sticking together. 

Ours also didn't need as long to cook as the recipe book said so they were a little over cooked to start with. In readjusting the cooking times so that they didn't burn, the batter didn't cook on the insides of the fritters so it was hard to find a good balance. 

From those that weren't burned and were cooked, the fritters were delicious. I was not fond of the dip at all - way too much chilli for me. Soph and Dave said it was ok but not great. They did say that it complemented the fritters well but it was part way between a salsa and a dip. I didn't chop the onions small enough so dipping the fritters didn't really work, you only got the sauce and no onion; it had to be poured over for you to get a taste and then it was a little much. 

We served the fritters with a chickpea curry,
Mannaquish, rice and home-made naan bread

The dired corriander and turmeric in the batter did work really well, it added a great flavour to the greens.  I don't think we'll be making them again though, it was a little tricky and not all that impressive.