Bala-bala a.k.a Mix Vegetables Fritter

Most of us must be familiar with fried fish or fried chicken. Both of them are popular fried meals in almost every country in the world. Fried rice and fried noodle are popular dishes in Asian countries. Frying is one of the easy cooking methods (bear in mind, I'm not talking about healthy or unhealthy cooking method here :P).

In my beloved Indonesia, almost every type of food can be fried. Banana fritter probably is the most popular fried fruit, but we also have pineapple fritter or jackfruit fritter (please raise your hand if you have ever tried them). Don't you thing it is very creative? ha..ha...ha..

Not only fruit. One of the popular street fried food is Bala-bala or mix-vegetables fritter. Some people call it Bakwan. It is made of mix vegetables (shredded carrot, chopped cabbage and bean sprout), flour, egg, salt and some spice. Normally, it is served with chilli paddy; oh yes... they are small but very hot.

In my kitchen, I have been trying to produce crispy and un-greasy fritters. After several time 'trial and error' cooking, finally I found out that it's better to use rice flour plus 2-3 tablespoons of wheat flour instead of using only wheat flour.
That's what I did when I prepared this Bala-bala. I got a very good result; a crispy skin but soft inside meat plus ungreasy fritters.

This time I'm just posting one picture of the food that I cook. The reason, ... I just took some picture from 1 angle, and suddenly my camera battery was drained empty. After charging the battery, the fritters were gone!

Bala-Bala
source : Dapurbunda
Bahan:
150 g tepung terigu (I used rice flour + some wheat flour).
1 butir telur ayam
100 ml air
100 g daun kol, iris halus
100 g wortel, iris halus kecil
50 g taoge, bersihkan
1 batang daun bawang, iris halus
minyak goreng
Haluskan:
2 butir kemiri
2 siung bawang putih
1 butir bawang merah
½ sdt merica butiran
1 sdt garam
Cara membuat:
Aduk tepung terigu, telur dan air hingga licin.
Masukkan bumbu halus, aduk rata.
Tambahkan sayuran, aduk rata.
Goreng sesendok demi sesendok makan adonan dalam minyak panas dan banyak
hingga kering dan matang.
Angkat, sajikan hangat.
Untuk 16 buah

*please let me know if you need the recipes in English version.

The pictures below were taken in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, on January 2009 during our vacation there. These are some popular street 'fried' food that very easy to be found around the city. Here, in India, everytime I see samosa, my mind is transported back to these kind of food. Don't you thing they look so tempting.