beguni recipe – a crispy bengali brinjal fritters aka batter fried eggplant fritters

Beguni recipe -a crispy bengali brinjal fritters aka batter-fried eggplant fritters with step-by-step pictures. Beguni is a Bengali style crispy, batter-fried brinjal or eggplant fritters, a popular dish in Kolkata aka Bengal & Bangladesh as evening time snacks. This dish is also known as begun er chop. It is a kind of tele-bhaja (which means deep-fried in oil), popular street food in Kolkata. You must find a telebhaja shop at every corner of each street of Kolkata that sells beguni. Though beguni is generally served with tea it goes well with puffed rice and niramish khichuri too. Monsoon or winter evening is perfect for having a cup of piping hot tea with these crispy brinjal fritters.

For making beguni aka bengali brinjal fritters, brinjal/eggplant needs to be cut into quite thin slices. First, need to dip into gram flour(besan) based batter before deep frying in oil. Though other than gram flour or besan, we add many more ingredients to make it more crispy. To get the exact taste of bengali street style beguni, you must have to use mustard oil for deep frying. Sprinkle the black salt at last as bengali street food vendors do.

This telebhaja recipe is invented in Bengal before the partition of India. So it’s popular among Bengalis from India and Bangladesh both. In India and Bangladesh, during Ramadan, these crispy eggplant fritters are must serve recipe for the evening iftar party. This batter-fried eggplant fritters are also popular as aubergine fritters in Europe. However, their ingredients are different from our version. 

Tips for making crispy beguni

Here I’ve shared some of my tricks to make this beguni crispy and delicious.

Firstly, cut thin slices of brinjal to perfectly cook it from the inside, and didn’t add salt to it.

Secondly, add some mild hot oil into the gram flour batter to make it more crispy.

Lastly, beat the batter nicely to make it fluffy which helps this beguni to puff up in oil.

Even you may try other Bengali evening veg snacks recipes from my website, such as:

• vegetable chop recipe
• mochar chop recipe

Try this crispy bengali beguni recipe at home. Please let me know your valuable feedback by writing a comment in the comment section below.

Beguni recipe – a crispy bengali brinjal fritters aka batter-fried eggplant fritters

Ingredients

1 cup= 250 ml

• 1 medium Begun/Brinjal/Eggplant
• 1 cup(200g) Besan/ Gram flour
• 2 tbsp(20g) rice flour
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/4 tsp chili powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp mild hot oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup of water( for making the perfect batter)
• Mustard oil (for deep frying)

Prep time: 10-15 mins

Cook time: 15 mins

Served in: 30 mins

Course: evening snacks

Cuisine: Bengali recipes

Total servings: 10-12

How to make crispy bengali beguni or brinjal fritters with step by step pictures

Instructions

1st step – Sliced the brinjal

• First, cut the brinjal into thin slices and keep it in a big bowl with water. It will prevent the slices from becoming blackish/brownish.

• Then take it out of the water and place it on a paper towel-lined plate. It will help to soak the excess water from the slices.

Step 2 – Making Batter

Now take 1 cup of besan or gram flour and sieve it to through a strainer. Then keep it in a bowl.

• Then strain 2 tbsp of rice flour and add it with the gram flour.

• Add 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp turmeric and 1/4 tsp chili powder to the gram flour- rice flour mix.

• Lastly, add 1/8 tsp of baking soda to the mixture and mix it well.

• Then add 1 cup(250 ml) of water into 3-4 batches to make a perfect batter. Don’t add the water at one time.

• Once the batter is ready, start beating it continuously for 3-4 mins. Then many tiny bubbles will appear on its surface, as shown in the pic.

• Then add 1 tbsp of mild hot oil(mustard oil) to the batter. Beat it continuously for 1 more min.

• Now the perfect batter is ready. Its consistency should not be too runny or too thick.

Step 3 – Frying beguni

• Place the pan on high heat. When the pan heats up, add mustard oil to it for deep frying.
• Check the oil is perfectly heated up or not, put a drop of batter into the hot oil. The drop first goes down to the bottom of the pan and immediately floats up, indicates it’s perfect.
• Then first take each slice of brinjal or eggplant, dip it into the batter.

• Then take it out of the batter. Drip off the excess batter before putting into the oil.

• Just after 3-4 secs of adding it into the oil, turn it down to nicely puff up from both sides.

• Fry, until it gets a nice golden brown color from both sides, and then remove it from the oil.

• After removing from the pan, keep it in a paper towel-lined plate to remove excess oil.

• Fry all the begunis by following the above instructions. Once it’s done sprinkle a generous amount of black salt and mix it well.

• Then serve this hot crispy beguni with a cup of tea or serve it with puffed rice.

Note: you may add little more or less water if required.