Hinger Kochuri│Bengali Hing ke Kachori Recipe

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This Hinger Kochuri is an East Indian flatbread recipe where pastry dough balls are stuffed with a pungent & spicy filling made of Asafoetida or Hing, and then flattened and deep-fried. It is puffy, crispy and a perfect side to a potato curry or perhaps cholar dal, if you are a lentil lover like me.

I never realized this before, but when you translate Hinger Kochuri, you actually get yourself a tongue-twisting English nomenclature for it. If we go for a complete translation, then it comes out something like this – Asafoetida-stuffed, Unleavened, Deep-fried Indian Bread. Well, however bombastic it may sound or appear to be, this hing er kochuri recipe is absolutely to-die-for.

Hing or asafoetida is a very popular Indian spice. It is extracted in the form of resin from the dried sap of a plant known as Ferula Asafoetida. Hing is known to have anti-bloating and digestive properties.

You will find its mention in several Indian recipes, especially in lentil or legume-based recipes.

Hinger Kochuri – Ingredients list

Traditionally, the hinger kochuri has a filling made with daals or lentils like urad or chana or toor. The lentil is soaked overnight before ground into a fine paste and then cooked with spices to make a dry filling, which is then stuffed in the dough to make kachoris.

However, I am using a shortcut method that I learnt from my mom, which cuts back the prep time immensely. There is no need to soak the lentils or to put on some elbow grease while making it into a filling.

Here’s a list of the ingredients you need to make hing er kochuri –

• Whole Wheat Flour
• All-Purpose Flour
• Ghee (Clarified Butter) – alternate would be any neutral oil
• Chatu or roasted Gram Flour – Alternate would be Besan or chickpea flour
• Hing or Asafoetida
• Red Chili Powder
• Salt
• Oil to fry

Step-by-step instructions for this Hinger Kochuri recipe in Bengali style

1. Take a mixing bowl and get all the ingredients for the dough together. The measurement for each is mentioned in the recipe card below.
2. Knead the dough using the ingredients as mentioned for it. The dough should be very soft and smooth.

3. & 4. Take the ingredients for the filling in a smaller bowl and mix it into a smooth yet crumbly paste.

5. Pinch off small balls of the dough and flatten them between your palms. Keep the centre thick while pressing the edges thinner.
6. Take a teaspoonful of the filling and keep it at the center of the flatten dough ball. Gather the edges together and pinch them so that the filling is neatly tucked in.

7. & 8. Now, roll it into a flat disc and deep fry it. Repeat it with the rest of the dough and filling till you get your kochuris.

How to serve Hing er Kochuri?

Ask any Bengali and he/she would immediately start recounting his favourite childhood memories of Hing er Kochuri served with either sukhno (dried) Alu’r Dom (Bengali Potato Curry) or Cholar Daal (Bengali Chana Daal ).

This hinger kochuri-cholar daal-alu dom combo can be best regarded as a king’s meal when we are talking about Bengali vegetarian dishes. Each of these is, most often, no-onion, no-garlic recipes which suits the Bengali definition of vegetarian recipes perfectly.

While growing up, Saturdays were the mandatory meatless day of the week., as we like to call it ‘niramish’ And my mom made every effort of maintaining it that way.

She would not allow us to have eggs, chicken, meat or fish. On top of this, there were some other things which were completely off-limit. Like onion and garlic. This may sound weird to you and you must be thinking that these grow on plants. But for Bengalis, they clearly fall under the ‘non-vegetarian’ category.

After making us adhere to such restrictions, she knew she had to make up for this. So, Saturday dinner would most often include our beloved luchi or even better kochuri, teamed with niramish cholar dal or niramish alu’r dom.

I have shared the Bengali niramish ranna recipe combo here which goes perfectly well as a breakfast on festive occasions, as well as, for leisurely weekend dinners. You can read my round-up post on luchi which suggests a number of side dishes that go well with it.

So, here’s the recipe for hinger kochuri or Bengali hing ke kachori.

Have you tried this recipe? I would love to hear about it.
Tag me on Instagram @speakingaloud_hashdiaries or Facebook @hashdiaries and I will share it further.

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