New Year's Special Recipe - Accara | Black-Eyed Pea Fritters

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This is my first recipe of 2013 and I sure wanted it to be a lucky one! Noone has an inkling on how the coming year's gonna be. Good, bad, ugly? All we can do is hope for the best to happen and to have enough courage to face any challenges thrown upon us. :-)

Since way back from Civil war days, eating black eyed peas on New Year is considered to brings loads of luck and prosperity. In the South, serving these beans show humility and thus they say invites good fortune. Whether we choose eat them as a tradition or not, these are a very good source of fiber, iron and low in fat with almost no cholestrol. For last year's New Year, I made a Black eyed Pea Kootu recipe and now, I chose a dish called "Accara" from Senegal cuisine. These immensely flavorful fritters are a very popular street food along with Pastels, tiny empanadas stuffed with fish and onions. When accompanied with a hot sauce, these make a delicious appetizer not just for New Year's but perfect for any time of the year.

Enjoy!

perfectly golden fried fritters!

Black eyed peas - for lots of luck.

{Recipe} Accara (Black-Eyed Pea Fritters)

Loosely Adapted from Saveur
Makes around 20-25 fritters (depending on the size)

Ingredients:

1 cup dried black eyed peas
1 tsp baking soda
1 medium sized onion, finely chopped
1 fistful of mint, washed, finely chopped
1 tsp green chilli-garlic paste
salt - to taste
oil for frying

Preparation:

1. Wash couple of times and soak the black eyed peas overnight or atleast 8-9 hours. Drain and rinse again.

2. If you wish to remove their outer skins, immerse the peas in water and rub them gently between your palms.  The skins will break away from the peas. Let peas sit until skins float to top of water. Slowly drain water from peas, allowing skins to drain with water; add more water if necessary, and repeat rubbing and draining process until all skins are removed from peas. I did this step just once and moved on to next step.

3. In a blender, grind the peas into a coarse paste scraping down sides of blender if necessary. Don't use any water while grinding. Transfer it into a bowl and add finely chopped onion, mint, salt and baking soda.

the batter has to be a coarse paste.

4. Heat oil in a pan for deep frying. Make small lemon sized balls out of the batter (using hand or two spoons) and working in batches, drop them into hot oil and cook until golden brown, about 3 minutes.

5. Transfer fried fritters on to paper towels to drain excess oil and Serve with ketchup, green chilli sauce or any other condiment.

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until next time,